Security and conflict

Every September, heads of state and ministers meet in New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly. In his opening speech, the UN Secretary-General named the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar as places where ceasefires had failed to protect civilians. On the third day, the President of Comoros warned that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz threatened food and fuel supplies in countries that import them. Apart from Sudan, Africa's own wars barely reached the main hall.

Sudan received its most serious attention at a side meeting on 23 September. It was the first joint meeting of two groups working on Sudan, the Quad and the Quintet, chaired by the African Union and the United States. Leaders from the AU Commission, the United States, the European Union and IGAD, the bloc of states in the Horn of Africa, called for a truce. They also asked for an end to outside arms supplies and a wider UN arms ban. IGAD's Workneh Gebeyehu said that "the Sudanese people cannot wait for another round of promises". The meeting produced no ceasefire and no money, so Sudanese civilians gained nothing from it.

Eastern Congo came up only as a dispute between two governments. Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) gave opposing accounts of the war. Peace talks between the DRC government and the M23 rebel group, held under a plan agreed in Doha, had settled two of their eight parts by September. The decision that will shape Somalia was taken in Washington. On 18 September the United States agreed that the UN office that supplies the African Union troops in Somalia will shrink over 12 months from January 2027 and then close. Those troops will soon need another way to get fuel, food and transport.

Governments everywhere are spending more on their armies. World military spending reached almost $2.9 trillion in 2025, the eleventh rise in a row. African spending rose 8.5% to $58.2 billion. Algeria alone spent more than all of Africa south of the Sahara together. African states can find money for their own forces, which makes the gaps in shared African missions harder to explain.

Violence is rising faster than spending. The Africa Center for Strategic Studies counted 23,968 deaths linked to armed Islamist groups in Africa in 2025. It also recorded more violent events than in any earlier year. Deaths in Somalia almost doubled, to 8,813. The Sahel, Somalia and the Lake Chad Basin together account for 98% of these deaths, so a few regions carry almost all of the killing.

The UN is shrinking its own peace missions at the same time. Its peacekeeping budget for 2026 to 2027 is $5.1 billion, a tenth lower than the year before. Missions are sending home a quarter of their soldiers and police. The United States pays about 27% of peacekeeping costs, and by April it had paid nothing for the current year. UN missions in the Central African Republic, the DRC and South Sudan now patrol less and protect fewer civilians.

In December 2023 the Security Council agreed Resolution 2719. It allows the contributions that all UN members must pay to cover up to 75% of a mission led by the African Union. It has never been used, because the United States blocked its first use, for Somalia. In February 2026 AU leaders discussed raising their own Peace Fund from $400 million to $1 billion, and decided nothing. Africa has a legal route to UN money and no agreed plan for paying its own share.

Aid for people caught in these wars is also short. By 30 September, donors had paid 43% of the UN's appeal for Sudan this year and less than a third of the appeal for Somalia. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger had received a quarter or less. Families who fled the fighting in these countries will get less than half the help planned for them.

In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces have been at war with the army since April 2023. In October 2025 they took the city of El Fasher after an 18-month siege. A UN inquiry found that the attack bore the hallmarks of genocide, and Amnesty International called the killings ethnic cleansing. By July 2026 about 500,000 people were trapped in the city of El Obeid, under drone attack for months. Sudan now has 33.7 million people in need of aid, more than any other country.

In the eastern DRC, the M23 has held the cities of Goma and Bukavu since 2025. In December 2025 it took Uvira, shortly after peace accords were signed in Washington, and then withdrew under US pressure. On 3 March 2026 the United States placed sanctions on Rwanda's army and four senior officers for directly supporting the M23. More than seven million people have been forced from their homes. The DRC is also fighting Ebola, which had killed 3,799 people by 23 September.

In Somalia, the African Union force has shrunk from about 22,000 troops in the mid-2010s to about 12,000. Somalia said about 14,000 of its own soldiers were ready in August. Yet some districts handed to them have fallen back to al-Shabaab, the armed Islamist group that holds much of rural southern and central Somalia. The International Crisis Group reports that Burundi and Djibouti may leave without more support. Uganda hopes others will pay for its troops. A dispute over when and how Somalia holds elections also distracts its leaders. If the troops leave before Somali forces can hold the ground, al-Shabaab will gain.

In Mali, on 25 April 2026, the al-Qaeda group Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) attacked six towns. It acted with the Tuareg-led rebels of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA). The attacks reached Bamako's airport and Kati, where the defence minister, Sadio Camara, was killed. Russian forces known as the Africa Corps gave up positions, including in Kidal. JNIM then blockaded Bamako. In late 2025 about 120 containers a day bound for Mali were held at the port of Dakar. Mali buys 26.5% of Senegal's exports, so Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana also pay for Mali's war.

Missions paid for by others run on others' rules and timetables. The Somalia mission now depends on a closing date set in Washington. Its $70 million gap is about 0.12% of what African states spend on their own armed forces. Closing it is a question of political will and of how African governments share the bill.

The largest security change of the month got almost no attention from African leaders. On 11 and 12 September the Houthis, who control much of Yemen, took the port of Mocha and Perim island. They now sit about 20 kilometres from the African coast, beside the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia all lie on this route, yet no African leader raised it at the Assembly. Djibouti took in more than 2,000 Yemeni refugees in 24 hours. Egypt had already lost about $7 billion in Suez Canal income in 2023 and 2024.

Shipping costs follow the danger. After the Houthis declared a blockade on 21 July, traffic through the strait fell by 30% the next day. Insurance against war damage cost 0.5% of a ship's value, five times the rate on routes that avoid the Yemeni coast. Traders in East Africa pay these costs in the price of every imported good.

The same holds in West Africa, where the blockade of Bamako hurts the ports of Dakar and Abidjan. Insecurity has become a cost of trade. Finance ministers and chambers of commerce therefore have as much at stake as defence ministers.