Countries currently at war 2024: which conflict risks getting worse?

In recent years there has been an exponential increase in armed conflicts throughout the world, especially in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) area.

Conflicts, floods, and the climate crisis have profoundly marked 2023 and the risk is that in 2024 some wars may worsen, leading to an escalation.

This is what the International Crisis Group says, an NGO that works to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts, which has recorded a significant increase in conflicts since 2011. Ongoing wars involve over 400 million children, as reported by Unicef. Between 2005 and 2022 - according to the United Nations body - at least 120,000 children were killed or maimed due to wars.

And while civilians die under the bombings, international politics stands by and watches, without being able to find a real resolution. A tragic example is the genocide that is taking place in the Gaza Strip, under the eyes of a West stuck in its political inaction.

But the tragedies have not only marked Gaza, the conflicts that risk degenerating in 2024 are numerous and are all concentrated between the Middle East and Africa. It is therefore appropriate to understand what the responsibilities of international politics are and what they are.

Here’s how many wars there are in 2024 and which ones risk getting worse.

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How many wars will there be in the world in 2024?

Since 2011, numerous conflicts have exploded all over the world and some of these are still ongoing, tearing countries apart and killing civilians. The difference, compared to the conflicts of the 1990s such as those in Cambodia, Bosnia, Mozambique, and Liberia, is that a series of ceasefire agreements had been reached, and although they were incomplete agreements, these represented steps towards peace, while in the last ten years, no pacts have ever been signed between the warring parties. Let’s see together how many wars are still ongoing in 2024.

• Libya, Yemen and Syria. The wars in these three countries are formally over, but de facto a lasting and definitive peace has never been achieved, since the warring factions have never reached an agreement. And Libya’s instability then spread southwards, causing a series of prolonged hostilities in the Sahel.

• Azerbaijan and Armenia. In 2020, the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave exploded. A conflict that has not yet been resolved given that in 2023 Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh and pushed many Armenians to flee, putting an end to a stalemate that lasted thirty years.

• Ethiopia. Another tragic conflict is the one that took place in this African state, in particular in the northern region of Tigray. Although the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, reached a ceasefire agreement with the Tigray rebels in November 2022, this represents more of a consolidation of Abiy’s power, but the tensions did not cease completely and they may explode again.

• Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of US troops in August 2021, the Taliban seized power without any special agreements. After decades of war, the country has returned to a repressive regime with serious consequences for civilians.

• Russia and Ukraine. Another ongoing conflict is the one between Moscow and Kyiv, which is losing Western support due to other wars, especially the one in Palestine, leaving Russia with larger space for maneuvers. Now, Russia is switching to a war economy, meaning that the war has no end in sight.

• Sudan. A war that is tearing a country apart. The ongoing conflict, which began from the capital Khartoum and soon spread to the rest of the country, is the result of a series of tensions that have been latent for years, fueled by foreign nations that have economic interests in the heart of the Horn of Africa such as the United States and Russia.

• Palestine and Israel. A century-old conflict which now, after years in which the Palestinian people were oppressed, has turned into a true genocide. Gaza is now razed to the ground and this could erase the hope of peace for an entire generation.

War 2024, which conflicts risk degenerating?

There are numerous conflicts that have marked 2023 but which soon risk facing a degeneration in 2024, as on some battlefields, efforts to achieve peace are absent.

Just think of Sudan, perhaps one of the worst wars underway today in terms of the number of civilians killed and displaced, and the political efforts of the United States and Saudi Arabia were to no avail. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict remains among the most dangerous that could lead to an international escalation. Due to declining Western support for Kyiv due to other conflicts, Moscow tries to force Kyiv to surrender, an unacceptable outcome for Ukrainians.

The situation in Ethiopia should not be underestimated, where experts fear that Abiy will try to gain an outlet to the sea by attacking Eritrea as far as the Red Sea. Finally, the conflict in Palestine risks spreading throughout the Middle East, as is already happening with the Houthis of Yemen who are blocking the Red Sea, or Iran who has struck Pakistan, while Israel and the United States threaten to intervene. All this while thousands of civilians and children die under Israel’s signature bombs.

In all the cases mentioned, peace is not negotiable with an agreement, and although diplomatic efforts for humanitarian aid are notable, international politics is totally absent, allowing daily massacres of civilians.

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War, the responsibilities of international politics

These international crises, the analysts of the International Crisis Group point out, often depend on the inaction of global politics. “The constraints on the use of force, for example, are crumbling” - writes the Italian La Repubblica.

And if diplomatic efforts in some cases have led to the rapprochement of some powers such as between Iran and Saudi Arabia, or between the United States and China, these have not led to conflict resolutions.

Even in crises in which they are not directly involved, great powers focus on diplomacy, relations with warring states, and economic interests, rather than engaging in peace solutions. Otherwise, it would not be possible to explain why the United States and other countries have voted against the ceasefire in Palestine, allowing de facto a genocide to continue.