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Africa's Conflict-Ridden Regions Face Another Existential Threat in'¯COVID-19

Lisa Bryant

   PARIS - In the West African country of Burkina Faso, rising insecurity
   has shuttered dozens of health clinics and left just three capable of
   carrying out coronavirus testing.
   In nearby Chad, a COVID-19-triggered drop in crude prices could
   translate into problems paying the Sahel region's most powerful army
   fighting an Islamist insurgency.
   And in nations ranging from Mali to the Democratic Republic of Congo to
   South Sudan, years of unrest have weakened governments, deepened hunger
   and malnutrition, and left crowded camps of displaced people with scant
   access to health care and hygiene services.
   If experts fear the coronavirus may deal Africa an outsized blow, the
   continent's conflict-torn regions are particularly vulnerable, analysts
   and humanitarians say.
   "They are now facing two wars," said Laurent Bossard, director of the
   Sahel and West Africa Club for the Paris-based Organization for
   Economic Cooperation and Development. "And these two wars will be
   interlinked in many ways."
   So far, the continent has reported just a few thousand coronavirus
   cases, and no major outbreaks yet of the kind being endured in China,
   Italy and the United States.
   But experts fear the cases could multiply rapidly, even as the
   continent risks potentially shrinking peacekeeping operations and
   humanitarian support from donor countries fighting their own battles
   against COVID-19.
   Calling for urgent action, the International Committee of the Red Cross
   warned this week that Africa's conflict areas would bear the brunt of a
   potentially "devastating" impact of COVID-19 on the continent.
   "We're particularly worried about Africa, because it's a continent
   marked by conflict and violence that haven't stopped" with the
   coronavirus, said the ICRC's Dakar-based spokeswoman, Halimatou Amadou.

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