Insights into Civilian Protection Risk Trends from the Global Protection Cluster

This article was authored by the Global Protection Cluster based on data and analysis collected from its 31 protection cluster operations throughout 2023. Further information is available in the GPC Annual Report 2023 and in the Global Protection Updates from March, June, and October 2023.

Overview of 2023 conflict contexts

Conflicts made 2023 a year of vast humanitarian needs. Violence continued to grow with no signs of deceleration across several countries where Protection Clusters are active. Violations of international law, including attacks on hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure, as well as rampant human rights violations, continued unabated and drove severe civilian harm. In addition, conflict and insecurity were the most significant drivers of high levels of acute food insecurity, laying bare the compounding impact of protection risks and violations on people. Across contexts, those already experiencing marginalization and different barriers, including children, persons with disabilities, women, and minority groups, experienced greater risks of violence, coercion, and deliberate deprivation.

At the beginning of 2023, fighting intensified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. Mounting concerns over protection of civilian issues arose as violence soared in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Haiti. New attacks in densely populated areas in northwest Syria, including IDP camps, also resulted in displacement. The humanitarian needs in Myanmar further worsened, while attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure continued to rise. The protection of civilians in Somalia was increasingly at stake with an overall deteriorating security environment, the outbreak of the armed conflict in Lascanood, and the beginning of a military offensive against Al Shabaab in Galmudug and Hirshabelle. Despite the signing of a bilateral ceasefire with the National Liberation Army/Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Colombia continued to see armed confrontations persist, causing displacement, confinement, and forced recruitment. The situation in Niger was mainly marked by an upsurge in inter-community conflicts and new trends in attacks on health infrastructures in the regions of Tillabery and Diffa. The July coup d’état threatened an already precarious protection situation. Despite the peace agreement in northern Ethiopia, inter-communal conflict, as well as conflict between government forces and unidentified armed groups, continued to exacerbate the protection risks faced by various communities throughout the country. The security situation deteriorated further in the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon, with an imposition of curfews curtailing freedom of movement of the population. Serious protection risks were already impacting people across the occupied Palestinian territory before October 2023. The widespread shelling, air strikes, and ground military operations carried out by Israel in response to deadly attacks by Hamas and other armed groups in October created a situation where nowhere is considered safe for civilians in Gaza, while people struggle to access clean drinking water and adequate food to survive. The number of people internally displaced in Sudan rose to 3.2 million by the end of 2023. The conflict has left 24.8 million—more than half the population—in need of assistance. The conflict in Sudan continued to have a spill-over effect, with thousands of people arriving daily in South Sudan and Chad.

Key protection risks in 2023

The number of people in need of protection across 31 protection cluster operations increased by 42 percent in just two years between 2021 and 2023. This increase was driven by new cycles of violence and conflict, such as those in Gaza, Sudan, the DRC, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Haiti, combined with protracted crises in places such as Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.

The Protection Clusters monitored and tracked 15 protection risks through the Global Protection Risks Tracker. The main driver of protection risks globally continued to be armed conflict and violations and abuses of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL). 2023 was characterized by a continued and blatant disregard for these legal frameworks, and perpetrators of violations and abuses were rarely held to account, thus encouraging a climate of impunity.

The figures below provide an overview of the number of protection risks per country, according to the reported severity level.

In 2023, in the majority of the countries monitored, Protection Clusters reported that civilians were exposed to high levels of risks posing extreme harm to civilians. These risks include attacks against civilians (as evident in places such as Ukraine, Sudan, South Sudan, the oPt, the DRC, and Cameroon), the presence of mines and other explosive ordnance (Ukraine), gender-based violence (Syria, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, the DRC, and Afghanistan), psychological and emotional abuse (Ukraine, South Sudan, the oPt, and Cameroon), as well as restrictions to freedom of movement, siege, and forced displacement (the oPt and Sudan).

• In 2023, attacks on civilians, including attacks against IDP camps, were reported in the DRC, resulting in thousands of civilians killed and wounded. The majority of incidents reported in Burkina Faso pertained to attacks on civilians and infrastructure. Violence associated with armed groups in Haiti resulted in the deaths and injury of thousands of people. The Protection Cluster in Cameroon noted an increase of attacks on schools in the first quarter of 2023. Protection incidents continued to create serious concerns for the protection of civilians and violation of IHL/IHRL in Myanmar, stemming primarily from artillery and mortar shelling, air and drone strikes, remote explosives/landmines, security operations, and indiscriminate attacks. The eruption of fighting in Lascanood in Somalia led to attacks on civilian facilities, including indiscriminate shelling affecting the main hospitals, destruction of property, markets, and water points.

• The presence of mines and other explosive ordnances severely impacted conflict-affected individuals in Ukraine. With increasing numbers of explosive ordnance including Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), curfews were further expanded in Burkina Faso. Explosive ordnance contamination continued to remain a major protection concern in Syria with over 10.2 million people at risk. Explosive ordnance continued to claim lives and threaten the safety and security of civilians in Myanmar.

• Gender-based violence, including sexual violence, collective rape, and sexual slavery, was reported as being used by gangs in Haiti to terrorize and inflict pain on the population. The ban on female workers in Afghanistan pushed more people to resort to negative coping mechanisms, including forced marriage. Restrictions on the presence of women and girls in the public sphere in Afghanistan has also resulted in reduced participation of women and girls in aspects of public life vital to their empowerment and well-being. The ongoing armed conflicts in the DRC has led to an alarming increase in GBV, involving women and girls being sexually assaulted outside of IDP camps while collecting firewood and water. Women are highly exposed to GBV in Burkina Faso, especially during the search for firewood, as shown by the kidnapping of women in Arbinda in 2023.

• The severe mental health crisis in the oPt was exacerbated by the recent escalations of violence in Gaza and spikes in violence across the West Bank. Fear for life, loss of loved ones, physical injuries, and wide-spread destruction significantly increased the risk of psychological distress. War trauma, stress, and anxiety continue to impact conflict-affected individuals in Ukraine, particularly children who experienced forced displacement, family separation and loss of caregivers, and disruption in education. Thousands of IDPs and returnees in Niger remained in psychological distress caused by high levels of violence and a lack of access to basic services, including humanitarian assistance.

• More than 2 million people have been displaced in Burkina Faso due to insecurity and violence. Violence-related internal displacement in Haiti rose in 2023. In the east of the DRC, 2 million people had to leave their homes between January 2022 and 2023 due to fighting. Forced displacement was also reported in Somalia, Sudan, and the oPt due to ongoing conflicts and violence.

Humanitarian access constraints also continued to pose a key challenge to effective and principled humanitarian action in conflict-crisis contexts around the world, with profound implications for protection actors’ access to affected communities and the access of those communities to humanitarian assistance and protection. The capacity of protection partners to negotiate access for protection activities, including with armed groups and duty bearers, is crucial to support positive protection outcomes.

• Specific crises were affected by multiple protection risks at the highest level across 2023, showcasing a very worrying situation of multiple compounded harms to affected populations, including high levels of violence, coercion, and deliberate deprivation. Sudan registered 6 protection risks at the highest levels, followed by South Sudan, oPt, and Cameroon. The table below provides the specific protection risks reported at the highest level in the top four affected countries:

Intensifying Child Recruitment in Eastern Congo

In 2023, UN reports showed a 20 percent increase in child recruitment in the DRC over the figures in 2022, with 1,861 children recruited and used in 2023 as compared to 1,545 children in 2022.⁸ This rise in child recruitment is part of a broader upward trend in serious violations against children in the DRC, including record-setting numbers of sexual violence committed against children by armed actors since 2021.⁹ These violations, occurring mostly in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, are the result of an intensification and fragmentation of conflicts between the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and a variety of Congolese and foreign armed movements operating in the territory. A massive increase in conflict-related internal displacement provoked by the growing violence (2.8 million people displaced in 2023 alone) has further exposed children to risks.¹⁰ Armed actors abduct and forcibly recruit some children from their communities. Other children opt to join armed groups as a means of protection and economic survival in the absence of any other viable alternatives.

The recruitment of child soldiers in the DRC has been a recurring problem in the conflicts that have plagued the country for decades.¹¹ The national security and defense forces as well as non-state armed actors have been responsible for recruiting children in the DRC. In addition to serving as combatants, often on the front lines, minors are used to transport food and ammunition and to monitor and report on the population for armed groups. Girls have been subjected to the full range of sexual violations, including sexual exploitation and abuse by FARDC soldiers as well as rape and sexual slavery at the hands of non-state armed groups. They are sometimes also mobilized for combat.¹²

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed opposition group affiliated with the Islamic State was the most violent actor against civilians in the DRC over the 2023 year.¹³ The ADF and affiliated Mai-Mai militias operating in the Beni region of North Kivu Province¹⁴ resorted to the abduction of children and exerted strong pressure on communities to send children into their ranks after a period of radicalization.¹⁵ Over the year, the Rwanda-backed 23 March Movement (M23) armed group also continued to seize new territory in eastern DRC.¹⁶ Its inexorable advance has been powered, in part, by child soldiers and it has continued to systematically abduct men, adolescents, and children in conquered territories. The group recruited and trained new child combatants in Rutshuru, Nyiragongo, and Masisi as it expanded its territory in North Kivu Province.¹⁷ M23 fighters have also been recruiting children in Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania at least since 2013.¹⁸ The M23 has extended its influence into South Kivu Province by reinforcing its collaboration with Twirwaneho,¹⁹ a Banyamulenge Tusti self-defense group that has been conducting regional campaigns to recruit children as young as 12 years old.²⁰

Despite these developments, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) continued to drawdown its presence in South Kivu in 2023 before departing from the province in April 2024. Speaking about this contrast, a MONUSCO official told CIVIC, “The disengagement of MONUSCO happen[ed] as if there was no war in North Kivu, nor any consequences on South Kivu.²¹

To combat M23, Congolese authorities have encouraged the creation and expansion of community-based self-defense groups, referred to in the area as Wazalendo (“patriots” in Kiswahili). The FARDC has reportedly provided Congolese military uniforms to Wazalendo, financially supported them, and coordinated military activities with them.²² These recruitment campaigns pose grave risks to civilians.²³ The Congolese army was removed from the UN list of parties responsible for the recruitment and use of children in 2017, but some stakeholders in the DRC have raised concerns that the FARDC’s support to Wazalendo groups utilizing child soldiers demonstrates a weakening of their commitments and obligations around child recruitment. “Of course, people are not stupid. They know not to use the expression Kadogo (“little ones” in Swahili) ... but yes, there are children in the ranks of the army’s partner militias,” explained a journalist in Béni.²⁴ The same observation was made by another source in Goma, saying, “At the outskirts of the city, you can see teenagers holding checkpoints on the road to Sake, equipped with kalashnikovs, radios, and sometimes new FARDC uniforms. Children are also used as bodyguards by warlords. Using children makes the job easier. They are loyal, faithful and malleable.”²⁵

The Congolese army launched new recruitment campaigns in 2023 to halt the relentless advance of the M23 and the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF).²⁶ Between December 2022 and December 2023, 40,000 new recruits joined the ranks of the FARDC.²⁷ A general election period from November to December 2023 also drove new FARDC and non-state armed group recruitment as political figures sought to bolster their positions ahead of the polls.²⁸ Notably, the Congolese army does not, itself, have adequate screening capacity to assess the age of candidates. MONUSCO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have thus supported screening of new FARDC recruits. Between December 2022 and June 2023, they excluded more than 642 children, including 27 girls, from recruitment into the FARDC and the Congolese National Police (PNC) in North Kivu Province alone.²⁹ These figures highlight the potential scale of child recruitment where MONUSCO and UNICEF are not present or do not have capacity to undertake screening. Moreover, no such protections are in place for recruitment into Wazalendo groups, and movement between these self-defense groups and the FARDC can be fluid.³⁰

In Ituri, child recruitment is estimated to have increased by 20 percent in the last quarter of 2023 as compared to 2022.³¹ A similar increase occurred in South Kivu Province during the electoral period. According to one official of the national Disarmament, Demobilisation, Community Rehabilitation and Stabilisation Programme (PDDRCS), the proportion of children recruited into non-state armed groups in the Grand Nord region around Beni rose from around 20–30 percent to an estimated 30–40 percent as result of the elections. He explained, “During the election campaign, if you wanted to be respected, you had to have your own armed group. Political leaders turned a blind eye to the presence of children for electoral reasons. What counts is the spirit, the courage to face the enemy, not the age.”³²

In March 2023, a meeting of the PDDRCS devoted to organizing collaboration between the FARDC and the Volontaires de la Défense de la Patrie (VDP)—an umbrella group of armed Wazalendo combatants—entrusted overall military command of VDP operations to Guidon Shimiray Mwisa, an individual who has been sanctioned by the Security Council (CDi.033) for the use and deployment of child soldiers in armed conflicts.³³ As one UN official explained, “We find ourselves in a completely contradictory situation where, on the one hand, the international community is pushing for DDR and, on the other, a government that is betting on a strategy of mass recruitment of young people in several provinces to join the war against the M23” in North Kivu.³⁴ Speaking about the worsening conditions and withdrawal of MONUSCO, another UN official warned, “As the situation in North Kivu deteriorates with violations and recruitment by the M23, we are seeing a militarization of the South, with young people organizing themselves and recruiting others. Prevention completely failed. We see all [of the] recipe for a disaster once the Mission will be completely gone.”³⁵

Indeed, recruitment does not appear to be subsiding. The Wazalendo phenomenon emerged as a result of civilian desperation in the face of relentless violence, and the insecurity that led civilians to mobilize into these self-defense groups has not abated. Recruitment into Wazalendo groups has also been fueled by patriotic speeches rallying communities along ethnic lines in a context of strong disinformation and the spread of hate speech.³⁶ Once mobilized, removing children from armed groups is extremely challenging. In 2023, the PDDRCS Beni section supported the removal of 150 adults, but only seven children, from non-state armed groups. Although the PDDRCS is directly supervised by the Congolese presidency, it remains an empty shell, unable to prevent or curb the phenomenon of child recruitment. In Kinshasa, the political strategy around the PDDRCS is stalled, and donors have been deterred from supporting it due to corruption.³⁷ This has left the provincial branches without resources. Some demobilization initiatives exist with the support of MONUSCO and local and international non-governmental organizations, but they remain very limited and could be significantly weakened by the planned departure of MONUSCO from the country. A PDDRCS official lamented to CIVIC, “The rise of the Wazalendo phenomenon has wiped out the progress made in the fight against child recruitment.”³⁸

To reverse this horrific trend, the government of the DRC should:

• Cease all collaboration with armed groups—including Wazalendo and VDP—responsible for grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children.
• Develop, in coordination with MONUSCO, the UN country team, and local civil society organizations, a strong and sustainable scanning mechanism to avoid child recruitment within the ranks of FARDC.
• Prioritize and dedicate resources, in coordination with the child protection sub-cluster in the DRC, to the PDDRCS capacities to support holistic and sustainable child demobilization and reintegration.

The government of Rwanda should also cease all collaboration with armed groups in the DRC—including M23 and Twirwaneho—responsible for grave violations against child rights and international humanitarian law, including the recruitment and use of children. The UN Security Council and other member states should increase pressure on the DRC and Rwandan governments to end their support to armed groups utilizing child soldiers and assist the Congolese government in prioritizing child protection during MONUSCO’s transition.

Assessing Civilian Exposure to Conflict to Better Understand the Dynamics of Violence and Experiences of Harm

This spotlight article was authored by Clionadh Raleigh and Katayoun Kishi from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project. The article highlights a new metric developed through a partnership between ACLED, which collects, codes, and curates geospatial and temporal conflict event data worldwide, and WorldPop, which produces fine-resolution population size estimates using remote sensing data to downscale national census information.⁴² Joining these conflict and population size data allowed users to assess conflict exposure rates locally for the first time in 2023.

According to ACLED data, global violence rates increased in 2023 by over 12 percent compared to rates in 2022, largely due to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. How can we accurately assess how these drastically increased conflict rates affected people and communities? Currently, conflict analysts tend to prioritize fatalities as a way to discern the impact of violence—and these are frequently based on aggregated, often national, figures. Attention to civilian fatality figures also tends to focus on largescale conflicts in which one or more governments are involved in the fighting, alongside more formalized “rebel” and “insurgent” armed groups. Some conflicts fit this form, but many others do not. And civilians across the globe face situations of violence perpetrated by gangs, militias, and mobs that do not always lead to large fatality numbers but nevertheless create situations of severe risk and harm. Consequently, concentrating solely on fatalities experienced in a country each year only tells part of the story and can fail to fully capture the realities, patterns, and trajectories of modern conflict, dismissing some risks that are repeatedly and extensively borne by local communities and ultimately miscalculating the number of people exposed to harm and unrest worldwide.

To distinguish conflict welfare metrics from warfare metrics (event number, fatalities, groups involved), ACLED created a measure called “conflict exposure.” This measure creates an estimate of the population directly exposed by proximity to conflict events as they occur. This approach is unique and complementary to other conflict metrics for several reasons: it is a measure of the dispersion and concentration of conflict among a population rather than frequency (the number of co-occurring events in a location or time) or intensity (the number of fatalities from events). Exposure presents conflict within the parameters of its location, contextualizing each event. For example, a conflict in a densely populated area may be different in strategy and aims from that in a sparsely populated area, and this effects how many people are exposed to violence. It is different, too, from the ratio of fatalities to exposed populations: while the deaths of ten civilians in a highly populated area is a tragedy, the same number of deaths in a much smaller village where that number constitutes ten percent of the population could have significantly deeper and longer-term social and political consequences. Repeated exposure to violence in any setting can undermine resilience, but that impact is magnified when a much smaller population is exposed to repeated events; their needs and vulnerabilities become immense compared to those of the larger population.

In short, many traditional metrics assume that people anywhere in a country or region are equally affected by conflict, while “conflict exposure” measures the impact of conflict on the people who must bear the violence; and repeated exposure reflects how those conflict burdens are unequally distributed. Looking at exposure radii of (maximum) 1, 2, and 5 kilometers, ACLED determined that, in 2023, approximately 4 percent of the global population was exposed to violence and demonstrations within 1 km or less of their homes, and approximately 1 in 6 people worldwide (1.7 billion, or 17 percent) were exposed to conflict⁴³ events within 5 km of their home. In highly violent states (those noted as extreme in ACLED’s conflict index in 2023), 1 in 3 people lived among repeated and dangerous conflict. Exposure is also rising: the number and proportion of people exposed to conflict in 2022–23 increased slightly, despite a relatively stable rate from 2018–2021. As noted, conflict rates increased 12 percent over this time, but exposure increased only slightly, indicating that a higher number of incidents is being experienced by an already exposed population.

The differences in patterns when comparing events to exposure can be stark: in 2023, countries with the highest number of violent incidents were not consistently the same as those countries with the greatest population exposure to armed conflict. For example, in Syria and Ukraine—countries with some of the highest numbers of conflict events worldwide—61 percent of the Syrian population was exposed to violence compared to less than half (46 percent) of the population in Ukraine. Indeed, the population repeatedly exposed to conflict in Ukraine is relatively small. Or consider Mali, highlighted below in a data visualization. The world watched successive coups in Mali in 2023, with a conflict rate that has increased year over year. However, only 26 percent of Mali’s population is affected by the Jihadi, state, and local violence despite it occurring over a very large space. Seventy-four percent of the Malian population is unaffected, and this population openly supported harsh counter-insurgency measures in the conflicted area.

Exposure can also help reveal armed actors’ strategies by answering the question of “where and who do armed groups attack?”⁴⁴ Armed groups can repeatedly target specific populations and places or disperse their attacks more widely. These are tactical choices, and they are not static over time—urban or rural populations might be attacked more or less frequently at different stages of a conflict and experience drastically different rates of exposure. Too frequently, policymakers and practitioners fail to understand these dynamics, which can help identify and predict the impact and trajectories of violence in a country. For example, in 2023, civilian casualties were highest in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), followed by Burkina Faso and Mali. However, the countries with the highest repeated exposure rates in 2023 include Lebanon, the oPt, Haiti, Colombia, Israel, and Myanmar. In these countries, the same people and the same communities are being exposed to violence multiple times, rather than the violence diffusing into new communities (which would increase the “geographic exposure” measure). If both measures increased, it would be clear that different communities were being exposed to conflict.

The Sahel data visualization below demonstrates that areas of repeated conflict are often in relatively underpopulated areas, while the areas of high population often see relatively low levels of violent incidents. This is likely because armed opposition groups operate in remote areas to avoid confrontation with state security forces or foreign mercenaries, who tend to be present in more densely populated areas.

Globally, the data demonstrates that repeated exposure to harm is a relatively common occurrence because of the way conflict events tend to cluster, affecting the same communities several times. When the exposure measure is combined with the number of events, new patterns emerge.⁴⁵ As conflict events have become more urbanized, the violent space of activity within countries appears to be shrinking, yet the population exposed to violence is far higher than the population that would be exposed in more rural settings. However, the degree to which armed, organized violence is sub-nationally clustered varies across different contexts. Populations in the DRC and Mexico are highly exposed to violence, for example, despite the pattern of events being largely clustered—these conflicts are taking place in very large areas, constantly and often in the most populated parts of those large countries.

“Exposure” represents a wide variety of experiences relating to conflict; it is impossible to know exactly how every individual has been affected by violence in their area, and this measure does not presume to describe fully those experiences. Adopting a metric that includes a consideration of the demography of violent incidents provides an opportunity to more closely track the experiences of civilians in conflict and portray a clearer picture of the realities of those who must bear the highest burden of conflict.

Israel/Gaza: The Role of Arms Transfers and Explosive Weapons in Devastating Civilian Harm

In 2023, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza drew renewed attention to the linkages between arms transfers and civilian harm. Israel has long occupied Palestinian territory and instituted systems that the International Court of Justice and leading human rights organizations describe as amounting to apartheid.⁴⁷ On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other armed groups launched an attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people, and human rights groups have concluded that Palestinian armed groups perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity during that attack.⁴⁸ Since then, the Israeli government has carried out a military campaign in Gaza that, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and likely left thousands more buried under the rubble. The death toll reached 21,800 by the end of 2023, including more than 8,600 children.⁴⁹

The war in Gaza has been devastating for civilians. Leading human rights and humanitarian organizations have found that some of the Israeli government’s actions amount to war crimes.⁵⁰ A United Nations report found that nearly 600,000 people in Gaza faced imminent famine in 2023.⁵¹ At the time of publishing this report in 2024, the entire population of Gaza—over 2 million people—faces high levels of acute food insecurity,⁵² and UN experts have declared that famine has spread throughout the Gaza Strip.⁵³

The Israeli military’s campaign in Gaza has relied heavily on military aid and arms sales from foreign partners, particularly the United States and Germany.⁵⁴ Between October and December 2023, the US transferred bombs, precision guidance kits, artillery shells, tank shells, missiles, firearms, and ammunition to Israel.⁵⁵ During 2023, the Israeli military used weapons from the US in attacks that killed civilians in Gaza and Lebanon and appeared to violate international humanitarian law.⁵⁶

Weapons transfers to Israel have also exacerbated a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. When explosive weapons are used in populated areas, data indicates the vast majority of victims are civilians.⁵⁷ In Gaza, one of the most densely populated places in the world, the Israeli government has extensively deployed explosive weapons, including large 2000-pound bombs.⁵⁸ These have destroyed civilian homes, schools, medical facilities, and critical infrastructure.⁵⁹ A US intelligence assessment reported that Israeli forces had dropped 22,000 US-made bombs on Gaza by November 2023—only one month after Israel began its military campaign.⁶⁰ The indirect effects of such weapons in Gaza include starvation and disease, which will continue to affect the territory’s residents for years to come.

The US government’s decision to continue arms transfers to Israel in 2023 conveyed a message of political support for Israel’s military campaign and the devastating civilian harm that resulted. In the last months of the year, senior US government officials repeatedly stated that US arms transfers to Israel were unconditional, despite US and international legal restrictions on arms transfers.⁶¹ Such restrictions include laws banning arms sales due to human rights violations and the blocking of humanitarian aid.⁶² The US government declined to fully use its arms transfers to Israel as leverage to bring about a ceasefire agreement.

Extensive harm to civilians has continued into 2024, and US public opposition to continued arms transfers to Israel has escalated.⁶³ Meanwhile, some countries have halted certain arms transfers to Israel. Although the United States suspended transfers of 2000-pound bombs to Israel in May 2024 due to harms associated with the use of these large explosive weapons in populated areas, it continues to provide other weapons, including 500-pound bombs, tank ammunition, mortar rounds, precision guidance kits, and war planes.⁶⁴

The role of arms transfers in facilitating civilian harm and likely atrocity crimes in Gaza has rightfully commanded global attention. Arms transfers can have significant global consequences for international humanitarian law, civilian protection, and human rights. They can also prolong armed violence and contribute to crime, corruption, and other risks. Arms-exporting states must ensure that their arms transfers do not contribute to violations of international human rights or humanitarian law and should consider how to prevent such transfers from creating other risks.

Emergency Response Rooms: A Model of Localized Aid Amid the Failure of the International Rescue Effort in Sudan

On April 15, 2023, a power struggle broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force formerly aligned with the Sudanese government. “Before the conflict, we lived from day to day, expecting something bad to happen, but we could never have imagined the scale of the disaster that we would face,” said Lala* a doctor who has been involved in the emergency response in Khartoum hospitals since the beginning of the crisis. The extraordinary levels of violence, including massacres of thousands of civilians and the destruction of property, was initially confined to urban centers, but it quickly spread to other regions of the country, creating the largest displacement crisis in the world.⁸⁴ By the end of the year, 70 percent of the health infrastructure in the areas of the country affected by conflict was non-functional.⁸⁵ Lala’s journey in the early months of the conflict illustrates the dire situation of many civilians: “There were no doctors or facilities left in Khartoum. I went to Madani, where hundreds of thousands of civilians [sought] refuge. Most of the cases I treated were people that got injured in Khartoum—many children with severe burns from the bombs.” In December 2023, when Madani came under attack, Lala was displaced again. The ambulance she fled Madani in was targeted by gunfire. Since then, like the majority of the Sudanese diaspora, she has tried to support initiatives in the country, either by providing direct support to family members or by funding mutual aid initiatives such as the network of Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs). “Those who have chosen to stay in ERRs have chosen to dedicate their lives to others,” she told CIVIC.

ERRs are a legacy of the mobilization of Sudan’s “Resistance Committees,” which were formed by volunteers, including medical professionals like Lala, during the popular protests that toppled the 30 years-long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir in 2019. ERRs, like Resistance Committees, began as neighborhood support hubs and applied a horizontal structure consisting of a network of locally led groups. Since April 2023, these structures have reemerged in Khartoum and organized themselves to provide basic assistance such as first aid, information on the conflict, protection advice, food distribution through community kitchens, social and emotional support for adults and children, psychosocial programs through the Women Response Room, shelters for those in need, and the reconstruction of essential infrastructure.⁸⁶

Run entirely by volunteers, the ERRs are rooted in Sudanese culture and the Islamic values of solidarity and sharing. “It all started with the idea of putting money and food together and sharing it,” said an ERR member named Mohamed.* Mohamed also explained the advantage of a horizontal structure embedded in local social ties, which sometimes allow negotiations with warring parties as well as the quick activation of support where and when it is needed. ERR volunteers follow a bottom-up approach, with community members assessing needs based on the situation they experience. “We are now able to reach remote areas where international actors do not have access. This is a typical example of what localization means in a context where international actors have completely failed,” Mohamed told CIVIC.

Despite the abrupt collapse of the Sudanese state in 2023 and what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described as “the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory,”⁸⁷ the international response has only covered 49.6 percent of the total requirements of the multi-cluster assistance and protection needs.⁸⁸ The historically under-resourced international aid response in Sudan did not scale up to adapt to the sudden deterioration in the security situation and the growing plight of civilians.⁸⁹ Even worse, key relief actors, including national and international NGOs, suspended many of their humanitarian and development programs, evacuated international staff, and cut local positions and salaries because of their lack of safe access to conflict areas, the disruption of communications networks, and delayed and unproductive humanitarian dialogue with the warring parties.⁹⁰ These actions further exacerbated an untenable situation.⁹¹

Given the inadequate international response, local initiatives such as the ERRs quickly became a vital lifeline for civilians.⁹² Although they have been concentrated primarily in urban centers in Khartoum and the Darfur states (they did not endeavor to replace the large-scale aid needed across the country), ERRs have progressively spread as a model of organization outside of urban centers.⁹³

According to some stakeholders who spoke with CIVIC, ERRs have faced skepticism from major donors, as the initiatives are funded by community donations and diaspora support, disrupting international aid standards and structural frameworks.⁹⁴ Mohamed reiterated to CIVIC: “The NGO industry works in a certain way. Not ours. We are redefining that model to serve the people on the ground, because the situation assessment is done by the people on the ground, for the people on the ground, as is the delivery of aid.”

Despite efforts to transparently communicate and evaluate the activities of ERRs,⁹⁵ a civil society actor explained that dedicated resources to carry out reporting exercises and ensure a robust accountability mechanism are lacking donor support.⁹⁶ The failure of humanitarians to adapt aid cash flows after the collapse of the banking system created a bottleneck that limited access to resources for local entities such as ERRs. Sudanese activists hope that ERRs and other local initiatives will catalyze the international community to break down traditional barriers to localizing aid and help the humanitarian sphere shift power and resources from international organizations to local actors directly affected by crises.⁹⁷

One ERR member told CIVIC that to attract foreign donors, ERRs established a charter and stronger coordination mechanisms between the different localities to avoid the duplication of efforts.⁹⁸ However, the scarcity of international funding for Sudanese grassroots organizations has also led to a form of uniformization of ERR structures that risks undermining other community structures adapted to local needs, such as the decades-old management mechanisms in some refugee camps in Eastern Sudan. These management mechanisms have found themselves having to adapt to the ERRs’ processes in order to be eligible for ERR funding. “What made ERRs interesting is that they are community driven. So, in some places where formal or informal community institutions existed, it is important to support their model and not [only] systematically ERR structures that were created,” noted Jamil*, a human rights lawyer working with IDPs.⁹⁹

So far, however, the funding received by ERRs has fallen far short of the initial pledges promised by donors.¹⁰⁰ Moreover, the needs of the ERR network and other local initiatives have been confronted with a gradual decline in support from the Sudanese diaspora, which is overstretched after a year of conflict with no sign of improvement, as well as a degradation in the situation of the civilian population that includes, in particular, widespread famine.¹⁰¹

Beyond funding, the recognition of local mutual aid structures by international actors should help promote more protection for their members, which, like other humanitarian workers worldwide, they deserve. This protection is needed now more than ever. ¹⁰² After years of fighting against authoritarian rule, volunteers—often identified as pro-democracy activists—are facing acute risks. “Those who commit crimes against civilians are the same for the two past decades, and [they] have gone unpunished for their grave violations against the Sudanese population,” explained Jamil.¹⁰³ Depending on the zone in which they are able to operate, volunteers of mutual aid initiatives often end up caught between warring parties, perceived as collaborating with the SAF or RSF. They are exposed to threats, arbitrary arrest, and death.¹⁰⁴ “Because of all these suspicions, one of us was recently assassinated in his bed,” an ERR member told CIVIC.

In the absence of sustained international support, Sudanese society has shown extraordinary resilience through a rapid, community-led response to protect civilians. But the pressure has become too great to ensure its continued functioning without external support. Locally led approaches to protecting civilians in need must be recognized, supported, funded, and protected by major donors. Beyond the humanitarian imperative, it is the recognition of the agency of Sudanese civilians to respond to, protect, and build their own social model for the future of the country that should be acknowledged through the support of ERRs and other existing community initiatives. Although critical, this support cannot, however, replace the primary responsibility of the Sudanese government to protect its civilians, nor the legal obligations of warring parties and their allies and international diplomatic actors. As Lala put it, “Our country is like a sinking ship that Sudanese youth are trying to save, but the burden has become too heavy and cannot be fixed by us alone.”

* All names have been changed to protect the individuals who shared their insights with CIVIC for this article.

Host-Country Consent: A Critical Component to UN Peacekeeping’s Protection of Civilians

This article was authored by Julie Gregory, a Research Analyst in the Protecting Civilians and Human Security Program at the Stimson Center.

The protection of civilians remains a core priority of the UN’s largest peacekeeping missions, including those in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan. However, host government obstructions and differing levels of community support to peacekeeping continue to hinder the ability of missions to protect civilians effectively.

At the operational level, host-government restrictions on the freedom of movement of peacekeepers remains one of the most widespread and significant impediments to the protection of civilians.¹¹⁰ Restrictions imposed on ground and air movements can impede the ability of missions to deter or address violence in hotspot areas, engage communities effectively, and carry out human rights monitoring, as well as maintain essential situational awareness. Throughout 2023, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reported significant delays or non-acknowledgement of the Mission’s Sharing of Information travel notices by the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces, as well as notable denials of access to ground patrols, forcing the Mission to either cancel or postpone a number of dynamic air and ground patrols across the country.¹¹¹

Prior to MINUSMA’s drawdown and closure in 2023, the Mission in Mali cited that movement restrictions imposed by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) tended to correlate with areas where protection needs were critical, thus “undermin[ing] the Mission’s ability to respond pre-emptively or quickly to protection of civilians concerns.”¹¹² Furthermore, the FAMa repeatedly prohibited MINUSMA from carrying out civilian protection patrols in localities where it was conducting military operations. In certain instances, access was prevented for prolonged periods of time, such as to the southern areas of Ansongo and Tessit in Gao, as well as to Djenné and Sofara in the Centre.¹¹³ Malian authorities also denied four out of five Mission requests in 2023 to conduct in-person human rights fact-finding missions, preventing the Mission from implementing key aspects of its human rights mandate.¹¹⁴

Restrictions on air assets have also increased in recent years, particularly as relates to the use of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. In the Central African Republic, for example, the host government revoked standing procedures for MINUSCA’s use of UAVs in December 2023, forcing the Mission to ground them. This obstruction has since prevented the Mission from gathering essential information to help inform security analyses and operational planning, thereby impacting MINUSCA’s work on the protection of civilians and support to humanitarian assistance.¹¹⁵ And in Mali, government authorities denied 24–30 percent of MINUSMA’s flight authorization requests between January and June 2023, the majority of which were UAV flights to enable the Mission’s situational awareness and help ensure the safety and security of peacekeepers.¹¹⁶

The perceived effectiveness of a mission in protecting civilians also affects the level of hostcommunity acceptance and support for it. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, civilian perceptions that MONUSCO was providing insufficient support to the Congolese security forces in the fight against M23 resulted in repeated violent protests against the Mission in 2023. Frequent attacks by civilians, stone-pelting, and the blocking of MONUSCO convoys further constrained the Mission’s field operations in North Kivu Province throughout the year.¹¹⁷ Anti-Mission sentiment is also being fueled by misinformation and disinformation campaigns online—many of which originate outside the country—and include claims that MONUSCO is “failing to protect civilians.”¹¹⁸

In other peacekeeping contexts, missions tend to benefit from greater buy-in and support from civilian communities, though support can vary significantly from one location to another based on its local reputation for protecting civilians. In a positive development, UNMISS reports that trust in “the Mission’s stabilizing presence” has led many communities to “seek the deployment of temporary operating bases near their communities, or the continued deployment of those bases beyond the prescribed 30-day limit.”¹¹⁹