Civil wars and armed groups under Covid-19

Motivations and Factors in the Silencing Guns and the Persistence of Violence

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5723950
AutoresSergio Luiz Cruz Aguilar (0000-0003-4757-4426, Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), autor de correspondencia), Julia Aparecido (0000-0002-6386-3634, Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp))
Año2025
Volumen36
Número6
Páginas1164-1206
Fecha de publicación2025-08-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSmall Wars and Insurgencies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0959-2318 • E-ISSN: 1743-9558
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09592318.2025.2494821
OpenAlexW4410333106
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas38

The COVID-19 crisis posed unprecedented challenges worldwide. Due to uncertainties and the United Nations Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire, a reconfiguration of the levels of violence was expected. Conversely, there was a possibility that state and non-state armed groups would take advantage of the pandemic for their own strategic aims. Initial findings indicated that violence persisted during the pandemic. While some armed groups temporarily decreased their activities, others continued their attacks. This paper aims to qualitatively analyse armed groups’ behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali and South Sudan. Our main argument is that the exploitation of the pandemic by certain armed groups is related to their motivations, the nature of the conflict, the operating environment, and their position within the conflict. This study contributes to prior research on civil wars and adds some insights into how the pandemic affected civil wars in particular, as well as peace and security in a broader sense by explaining how and why armed groups behaved during the COVID-19 crisis

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Computer security · Criminology · Outbreak · Political science · Computer Science · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Engineering · Gun Ownership and Violence Research · Medicine · Psychology · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence · Virology