What's happening between Ethiopia and Eritrea?

My latest for RFI: 

Growing rift between Eritrea and Ethiopia sparks fear of new conflict

Tensions have been building between Ethiopia and Eritrea since the beginning of the year, with both countries saying they're preparing for the possibility of war. Since Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, the latter has become landlocked and says it needs to acquire the Red sea statements viewed as provocative in Eritrea. Meanwhile, violence is also escalating at the border, in the Tigray region.

 Explainer.

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Melissa Chemam

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In the middle of the month of January, the Ethiopian police said they seized thousands of rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to rebels in Ethiopia's Amhara region last week, an allegation Eritrea dismissed as a falsehood intended to justify starting a war.

The Ethiopian police said in a statement that they had seized 56,000 rounds of ammunition and the arrest of suspects.

"The preliminary investigation conducted on the two suspects who were caught red-handed has confirmed that the ammunition was sent by the Shabiya government," the statement said, referring to the ruling party of Eritrea, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).

But for Eritrea's Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Prosperity Party (PP) is looking for a pretext to attack.

"The PP regime is floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years," he told news agencies.

Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki said, in an interview earlier in February with state-run media, that the PP had declared war on his country. He added that Eritrea did not want war, but knows "how to defend (its) nation."

Historical feud and Tigray war

Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993, after a series of episodes of insurgency, guerilla and war, started in 1961. The two countries were then openly at war from 1998 to 2000, followed by a border conflict for nearly two decades.

They finally signed a historic agreement to normalise relations in 2018 that won Ethiopia's Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, reaching a fragile peace deal that has since given way to renewed threats and acrimony. 

The war in Tigray, at the border with Eritrea, which erupted in 1975, but was reactivated multiple times and more recently from November 2020 to the end of 2022, has complicated relations.

Since the conflict started again in January, the situation has created new tensions.

For experts, the situation in Tigray is at the core of the escalation between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

"I think one has to start with the Tigray war, with the consequences of the war and the rift that the post-war period and the Pretoria agreement has created between the federal government of Ethiopia and their Eritrean leadership," an Addis-based security analyst, who did not want to be named, told me.

Eritrea has been trying to get closer to the TPLF, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, recently, leading to a feud with Addis Ababa. 

"There is information circulating that the Eritrean troops have gotten deeper into Tigray, even nearing the capital, Mekelle," the security analyst added, "and they station at some of the checkpoints around that area." 

The insurgency movement in the Amhara region might also take a different dynamic 
following "the security vacuum that has unfolded following the partial withdrawal of the security forces and the Ethiopian National Defense Forces from the region," the analyst said. 

Need for sea access

The tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia have many other unresolved roots.

Ethiopia's anger at Eritrea's independence also stems from the fact that with it, it lost its access to the Red Sea, Eritrea sitting along the coastline.

According to Clionadh Raleigh, the director of ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data organisation, and a professor of African politics and conflict at the University of Sussex in England, Ethiopia absolutely needs access to the sea.

"It's a much larger country than Eritrea," she told me. "I'm a political geographer and I've never seen anything as insane as that. It was a terrible idea when it happened. And Ethiopia has every right to say, 'listen, we're going on 120 million people, we need sea access.'

Meanwhile, Eritrea, she said, is less densely populated, and led by an old dictator.

"The Isaias Afwerki regime is something that people cannot wait to see end. And Addis is still hoping to reintegrate it into a larger Ethiopia, potentially within the next generation," Raleigh added.

Eritrea regularly accuses the government of Addis Abeba of threats of military action to get access back to the Red Sea.

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy has also tried to get another access, notably via a deal with another breaking-away region of the Horn of Africa, Somaliland, which is destabilising the equilibrium of power within the whole region.

But Abiy keeps saying Ethiopia does not seek conflict with Eritrea and wants to address the issue of sea access through dialogue.

"The need to access the Sea is one of where Ethiopia's strategic vulnerabilities lie," the Ethiopian analyst confirmed. "It is the second most populous country in the continent, and the largest economy in the region."

He says it is strategically important, particularly to the current leadership, which aspires to play a greater regional role and address its geopolitical, strategic vulnerabilities stemming from lack of access to the sea. 

Weeks of escalation and regional instability

Additionally, the war in Sudan is contributing to worsening relations, as Asmara supports the Sudanese army, along Cairo and Riyadh, against the paramilitary RSF, that many accuse Ethiopia of supporting.

According to Raleigh at ACLED, there'll be no stability in the Horn for a long time. 

"Ethiopia is desperate to change, and they do not expect this process to be victimless or peaceful. It has allied itself to both the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, against a Saudi - Egyptian - Sudanese coalition, with Somalia somehow," she told me.

So, while the two countries appear to be moving toward intensified proxy conflict, the peacebuilding consulting agency Crisis Group (ICG) recommend de-escalatory steps to avoid direct hostilities, accidentally or, as many fear, through Ethiopian aggression.

"Either scenario would be a disaster for the Horn of Africa and its vicinity, potentially drawing in neighbours and non-African powers, particularly from the Arab Gulf," the group wrote in its latest report, titled Seven Peace and Security Priorities for Africa in 2026.

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Podcast & newsletter on critical minerals

 

New, fresh from today

Let's look at the race for critical minerals

The 'new scramble for Africa' has begun, and no one is innocent.

Melissa Chemam

Feb 17, 2026

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Dear readers,

As this season inflicts terrible weather patterns to half of the world, powerful economies still insist on producing more energy and producing more, point.

The more emblematic choice representing this entitlement is the race to mine metals and rare earth elements that are at the core of the current production of electronic components, vehicles and other high tech products.

Here is a dive into the political and human implications.

Newsletter:

https://melissa.substack.com/p/lets-look-at-the-race-for-critical

Podcast:

https://www.rfi.fr/en/podcasts/spotlight-on-africa/20260217-spotlight-on-africa-the-race-for-africa-s-critical-minerals

Apple:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spotlight-on-africa-the-race-for-africas-critical-minerals/id1241972991?i=1000750150277

AU Summit 2026 - insight

 

African Union summit opens in Addis, as continent faces climate extremes and conflicts

The 2026 African Union Summit is being held this weekend in Addis Ababa, with Angola handing the rotating chair to Burundi. The bloc is facing challenges including mounting conflicts, insecurity in the Sahel, strained ties with Washington and internal strife, while this year’s summit theme of water only highlights the damage done by devastating floods across the continent and the urgency of tackling the effects of the climate crisis.

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By Melissa Chemam

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African Heads of State and Government will convene in the Ethiopian capital on 14 and 15 February, following the 39th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU), held from 11 February.

The issue of water as a vital resource is the official theme of 2026 for the AU.

Addressing the executive council meeting this week, Chairperson of the AU Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, emphasised the critical importance of the theme on water and sanitation, framing water as a vital collective resource that must be preserved amid climate change and leveraged as a tool for peace and cooperation among member states.

"In the face of observed climate disruptions, the prudent use of water in all aspects of daily life is a major imperative. This vital resource must be perceived as a collective good to be preserved at all costs and as a vector for bringing our States closer together and for peace," Ali Youssouf said in a press briefing.

However, peace and security issues are likely to be at the top of the summit agenda.

'Heightened global uncertainty'

Angola, under President João Lourenço, has been holding the AU chairmanship for 2025. Now, Burundi is set to assume the rotating presidency with its President, Évariste Ndayishimiye, to be named the AU Chairman for 2026.

But across Africa, democratic and human rights regression, contested elections, repression of dissent, and prolonged states of emergency are testing the credibility of governance institutions.

This week, the Chairperson of the AUC received the Secretary-General of the UN, António Guterres, at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, and discussed strengthening multilateralism at a time of "heightened global uncertainty", and the need to "advance peace, security and sustainable development."

The Chairperson of the AUC also expressed concern over "political instability, security crises, and unconstitutional changes of government, noting progress in Gabon and Guinea but setbacks in Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau, while underscoring the persistent terrorist threats in the Sahel and Horn of Africa."

"While there has been regression and progress is minimal, our mediators are active," noted the AUC Chairperson.

"The Summit comes against a backdrop of intensifying global fragmentation, shrinking multilateralism, escalating conflicts, deepening debt distress, and growing climate stress,"  Desire Assogbavi, an international development strategist and currently an advocacy advisor for Africa at the Open Society Foundations wrote in his yearly analysis ahead of the summit.

Internal weaknesses

The African Union, if praised for being one of the biggest international organisations in the world and a really important tool for Africa, is also often described for being "very much inefficient", according to Clionadh Raleigh, the director of ACLED, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data organisation and professor of African politics and conflict at the University of Sussex in England. She even thinks it is "beyond inefficient".

"It's totally incompetent. Totally. It has a singular job to represent a coalition of African states. It can't do that internally," she told me. And It certainly can't do that externally."

She reckons that Africa needs it, however, and that Africans are being let down by the processes in the AU, which are "factionalised and bureaucratic and just generally incompetent."

"And people are able to see this outside," she added. "If you're an organisation, a business, or a government such as the Trump administration, you're going to try to make sure that you benefit from those factions or those."

Conflicts with no resolution

While the ongoing conflicts in Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sahel, and Libya continue to inflict devastating civilian harm, others have reemerged, in South Sudan, the Sahel and Ethiopia notably, exposing the limits of security solutions.

Chairman Youssouf expressed "deep concern" over the continent's endless crises, but has limited scope to act, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a recent report, "at a time when the AU is needed the most, it is arguably at its weakest since it was inaugurated."

Spokesman Nuur Mohamud Sheekh told news agencies that "the AU has helped de-escalate political tensions and support dialogue before situations descend into violence," citing the work done to prevent war between Sudan and South Sudan over the flashpoint region of Abyei.

But the fact is that the leaders have not been able to come with any solution for Sudan or the DRC.

The AU summit should be "an opportunity for decisive AU leadership on Sudan", for the UK-based think tank Chatham House, but "it must not be missed", as Hubert Kinkoh, Mo Ibrahim Foundation Academy Fellow, Africa Programme, wrote. 

"The 2026 AU summit presents a narrow but critical window to reset the continental response. Without decisive action, Sudan risks irreversible fragmentation: de facto regional administrations could consolidate, national institutions could collapse entirely, and cross-border spillovers could intensify," he penned.

He added that Sudan is a defining test for the AU and its commitment to "the principles of constitutional order, non-indifference and civilian protection." 

US threats

The summit also occurs as the Trump administration in the US changed its stance on Africa on many levels. US interventions in Africa have multiplied, from the cuts to foreign aid, his diplomatic war with South Africa during the G20 to the recent strikes on Nigeria, but also a keen interest in the continent's critical minerals, especially in the vulnerable DRC.

Frederic Mousseau is the policy director at the Oakland Institute, which supports Congolese lawyers and human rights defenders putting a challenge at the Constitutional Court in DRC around the US DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed alongside the peace deal on 4 December 2025, in Washington, DC.

He told me that "the US is indeed moving very aggressively".

"This deal doesn't appear to be to the advantage of the Congolese; it is about private US interests and corporations," Mousseau said. "There's very little about the economic benefits, the returns for the population. And there's very little about the victims of the war, those who have been suffering for years, decades of this war in the East, which is a very serious concern.

The US's interest in African states is to "make room for their own corporations to have extremely favorable terms in how they operate within that country," according to ACLED's Raleigh.

"There is no concern for not just how the citizens will benefit from their own natural endowments, and there's also no concern for the violence that is part of this whole system. So we're looking for more violent times," she concluded. 

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 * Read also:

Climate change 'supercharging' deadly floods in southern Africa

South Africa confirms temporary withdrawal from G20, as US takes the helm

African Union Summit 2025 opens as conflicts rage on the continent

AU-EU summit ends with pledges on trade, minerals and migration

116 Benin bronzes will return from the UK to Nigeria

 

My latest:

Cambridge University Museum to return 116 Benin bronzes from the UK to Nigeria

The pieces are mainly wood and ivory sculptures and commemorative heads and were stolen by the British army in the late 19th century in what is now Nigeria.

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Melissa Chemam

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More than a century after their thefts, these treasures, known as the Benin Bronzes, will return to where they were stolen.

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge announced on Sunday the return to Nigeria of these 116 artifacts from the former Kingdom of Benin, stolen in 1897 by British colonial forces during the sacking of Benin City, the former capital of the Kingdom located in what is now southern Nigeria.

Among the returned bronzes that will travel in the coming months are wood and ivory sculptures, as well as commemorative heads of King Oba and Queen Mother Lyoba Idia.

The decision follows the formal request from the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria (NCMM), made in January 2022, for the return of artefacts.

The University’s Council supported the claim and authorisation from the UK Charity Commission was subsequently granted.

"Physical transfer of the majority of the artefacts will be arranged in due course," the University’s Council added.

Seventeen pieces will remain on loan and on display at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), in Cambridge, for three years in the first instance, to be accessible to museum visitors, students and researchers in the UK.

A welcome return

A return that contributes to "restoring the pride and dignity" of the Nigerian people, according to Olugbile Holloway, Director General of the NCMM.

"By agreeing to cede some of its approximately 500 works from Benin City, the British institution has decided to respond favorably to a request made in 2022 by the Commission," he said.

He added that "the return of cultural items for us is not just the return of the physical object, but also the restoration of the pride and dignity that was lost when these objects were taken in the first place."

Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in Cambridge said: “It has been immensely rewarding to engage in dialogue with colleagues from the National Commission of Museums and Monuments, members of the Royal Court, and Nigerian scholars, students and artists over the last ten years."

Over the period, support has mounted, nationally and internationally, for the repatriation of artefacts that were appropriated in the context of colonial violence, he added.

"This return has been keenly supported across the University community.”

A gradual European move

The University’s decision is in line with similar commitments made by other UK, US and European museums.

Before the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, the Netherlands also announced last year the restitution of more than 100 Benin bronzes to Nigeria.

Other institutions in the Uk also agreed to return stolen artefacts to Ghana.

These returns come as pressure mounts on Western museums and institutions to address the restitution of African artefacts plundered during colonial times by the USA, France, Germany and Belgium.

French senators adopted a bill in January to simplify the return of artworks looted during the colonial era to their countries of origin.

However, the British Museum still refuses to return part of its collection.

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WITH MINNESOTANS

 

This week, in my podcast:

Interview with Dr Rashad Shabazz, a specialist in human geography, on the line from the US, on his research on Minneapolis.

As the agents from the agency known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement - or ICE - are under scrutiny after increasing violence and the death of two civilians in January in the city of Minneapolis in Minnesota, in the North of the country; Renée Gould and Alex Pretti, some courageous people are trying to fight again this brutality, and its signalling of a terrible ending for the rule of law and people’s freedoms.

ICE agents and others from the Border Patrols have been deployed in Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s largest-ever immigration-enforcement operation, involving up to 2,000 federal agents.

The administration has as its main target recent immigrants from South America and from
Africa, and has publicly targeted the people of Somali origin in the state.

It has also suspended immigrant visas to the US, a policy that has disproportionately affected African countries – 39 in total, which face either total or partial visa restrictions.

Minnesota is the home of the largest Somali community in the USA - between 80,000 and 100 000 - and one of the biggest outside Africa (with communities in the UK and Canada). And it is mostly concentrated in the Twin Cities area, between Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who’s Somali herself, was also attacked the last week of January by a man who rushed to the podium she was speaking from and sprayed an unknown substance at her.

To discuss the reactions in the different African American and immigrant communities in the US, I spoke with Dr Rashad Shabazz, a specialist in human geography, on the line from Arizona.

He has done research on the city of Minneaoplis, where he used to be based, after New York and Chicago. And he’s written about recent and less recent immigration policies, as much as about the Black populations of Minneapolis, including its probably most famous one, the singer Prince.

Minneapolis is also the location of the tragic death of George Floyd, which inflamed the Black Lives Matter movement again in 2020.

“I'm in touch with people who are living in Minneapolis, who are organising and are experiencing this onslaught by ICE agents, and there are a number of emotions,” Rashad told me. “There is deep anger at the federal government's response, how the city is being treated and the community members. There is frustration that not much is being done by Minneapolis and Minnesota officials to alleviate the stress. And then there's also this deep sense of community that those who are organising in response to the deportation efforts are feeling.”

He said he initially thought other cities would be targeted, like his hometown, Chicago, or Los Angeles, where he is currently living, or Phoenix, Arizona, all of which have higher populations of communities of colour, higher immigrant populations, and particularly large Latino populations.

“I assumed that it would be those places, but upon further review and thinking about it in terms of the kind of spectacle and the impact that the administration wants to make vis a vis deportation numbers, Minneapolis makes a lot of sense because it is a left of centre city, and it is also a city with a growing number of communities of colour, particularly immigrant communities from Latin America, from Central America, from Africa, as well as from South Asia,” he added.

The geography of the distribution of the immigrant population is also a factor.

“Unlike Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City and D.C., the immigrant and community population of colour, while centred in the Minneapolis Saint Paul Twin Cities region, have really been growing over the last decade in small towns and suburbs all over the state. So what that means is that the efforts that the administration has to deport as many people can have higher rates of success in a place like Minnesota, because in towns like Austin or Mankato or Worthington or even in some of the suburbs, there’s not as much resistance, and there’s not an infrastructure of community organising that exists. So in that sense, the rates of success for the administration can be higher there.”

There is also, in Minneapolis, a large Somali community, and the Trump administration and President Trump himself have been targeting Somalia and Somalis strongly.

“There is, of course, a deep anti-Black racism that runs through this,” Dr Shabazz said. “So while the anti-immigrant rhetoric is affecting immigrant populations in large bounds, the very particular anti-Black rhetoric and targeting the Somali population, has real traction amongst a core group of Trump’s supporters, members of his Republican base.”

Then we also discussed the fact that Minneapolis is also a city where George Floyd was killed by the police, in 2020… and looked at why some want to pretend they didn’t see the true face of Trumpism sooner…

To listen to our entire conversation, check the next episode of my podcast, from Tuesday 3 February: https://www.rfi.fr/en/podcasts/spotlight-africa/

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Dr Rashad Shabazz concludes:

“As a scholar, this is why history is important. The administration is attempting to whitewash and remove historical narratives of enslavement and of racist policing and of the denigration of poor people. And given this nation’s allergic reaction to its own history and its lack of knowledge of global history, this moment is deeply shocking to a lot of people in this country, I’m sure.”

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Meanwhile, protests against ICE, discrimination, stigmatisation and racism, are growing in Minneapolis. Kudos to these rare, courageous people, who are fighting to protect all of us, even beyond the USA.

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For more: link to the podcast

Spotlight on Africa - An in-depth look at an important story affecting the African continent today

https://www.rfi.fr/en/podcasts/spotlight-on-africa/20260203-spotlight-on-africa-us-strikes-in-nigeria-and-fear-among-the-african-diaspora

Let's not forget Syrians

This week, I had an ooportunity to discuss the situation of Syrians displaced by so many years of war and recent fighting, inside the country or abroad. 

Here is a summary of the interview.

Podcast to find here. 

 

Syria's humanitarian crisis cannot be forgotten by the West, says NGO

The war in Syria has seen a surge of violence, as recent clashes in Aleppo have displaced 170,000 people and claimed civilian lives. The horrendous humanitarian crisis deepens, with two-thirds of the population requiring urgent aid. With the UN’s response plan underfunded, NGOs like the Danish Refugee Council warn of catastrophic consequences as cold weather and economic collapse push millions to the brink.

  

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Melissa Chemam

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A family flees from the vicinity of Humaymah village, east of Aleppo,
in Syria on 16 January, 2026. © AFP - OMAR HAJ KADOUR

Syria is a country wrecked by over a decade of civil war and jihadist violence, but the most recent events have led many refugees to try to get back home.  

Families have had to flee the region of Aleppo since mid-January 2026. The previously Kurdish-held region of northern Syria was given a deadline by the army, which seeks to expand its control over the area after driving Kurdish forces away. 

Ongoing hostilities between government forces and armed groups continue to trigger displacement and protection concerns, especially in northern and southern Syria, as well as coastal areas, according to the UN. 

NGOs estimate that over 15 million Syrians require humanitarian assistance in 2026, with funding shortfalls threatening aid operations.

The 2026 Syria Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 33.5 percent funded, leaving a $3.2 billion gap.

Health care access remains unreliable, and basic services are severely disrupted. Millions still live in extreme vulnerability, facing displacement, economic hardship, and lack of clean water or protection.

Added to that, a harsh winter and drought-like conditions are exacerbating the crisis, straining resources and increasing needs among the population.

While there is a political transition, reconstruction and recovery efforts are hindered by instability and lack of funding. 

Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), was on the ground in Syria where the NGO operates in five governorates, including Aleppo. She told me about the humanitarian situation in Syria, fragile people's needs and how the NGO intends to work further there. 

"It is an incredibly fragile moment for Syria," she said. "This is a country where two out of every three Syrians need humanitarian assistance, and 90 percent of the population lives below the poverty line."

Thirteen years of civil war and fighting

Since the fall of the Assad regime, more than 3 million Syrian refugees and IDPs have returned home, but they are returning to cities, towns, and neighborhoods that are in ruins after more than 13 years of civil war. 

"Syria has had a new government in place for the last year," Slente continued, "and it's time to sort of recap on our programming here and adapt our programming to the new realities on the ground. A vast percentage of the population here in dire need for humanitarian assistance on the ground. So it was a time for looking into  how we can best adapt our programming here to the needs of the people."

These needs are vast, she added, and many people are returning to their homes to find almost nothing: 2 million have returned from internal displacement and about a million people from neighbouring countries.

Many say they are fearful.

"We are afraid that they will attack our regions and that massacres and genocide will occur,' one woman told RFI's reporter in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, on the border with Turkey.

"I hope there will be an agreement and that we will reach a positive resolution to the conflict so that no more bloodshed occurs," a man added.

Vocational training to rebuild hope

The priority for the DRC is now to support the displaced people and the ones who went home with vocational training but also to work on getting rid of all the mines in these areas and similar threats.

"We just finished the training of some of our mine clearance actions," Slente said.

Teams have been trained over recent months, brave Syrians who are now ready to go out and assist with clearing mines and unexploded ordnance in the Syrian territory.

"We are helping build the capacity here of the National Mine Action Centre in the Ministry of Emergencies that needs to coordinate that very big endeavor of clearing Syria from unexploded ordinance and landmines. It means that now we can get more jobs done on the ground with the clearing of mines, getting that out of the field and villages, so that people can actually be safe when they move around the territory."

The Syrian civil war began in 2011 as a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, effectively ending in December 2024 with the fall of the Assad regime. Assad and his family fled to Russia, marking the collapse of over 60 years of Ba’athist rule, but not the suffering of Syrians.