Confronting Civil War: The Level of Resilience in Abyei Area during Sudan's Civil War in the 1990s

Abstract

Civil wars have become common and widespread, particularly in Africa. Civil war negatively affects rural livelihoods and contributes to increased vulnerability. Yet, there is limited understanding of how people survive in such circumstances. This article attempts to offer a nuanced understanding of the level of resilience and vulnerability during Sudan's civil war in the 1990s. The main thesis of this article is that households exposed to prolonged conflict undertake livelihood strategies that are effective under certain conditions and less effective in other settings. The households exposed to exogenous counter-insurgency warfare are found to be more resilient than those exposed to endogenous counter-insurgency warfare. Also, a negative relationship between wealth and vulnerability is found in the context of exogenous counter-insurgency warfare, while a positive relationship between wealth and vulnerability is observed in the context of endogenous counter-insurgency warfare, with the non-poor becoming more vulnerable than the poor. The findings of this paper may have some value for informing policy decisions and practical humanitarian approaches during civil war.

Crop Cultivation at Wartime – Plight and Resilience of Tigray’s Agrarian Society (North Ethiopia)

“…Wild foods such as berries are important foods, where people can rely on when crop yields are low. Also, in garrison towns, blockades of food were often maintained for complex commercial and private (economical) interests (Kuol 2014;Macrae and Zwi 1994).…”

“…On the other hand, just like in Tigray shifting in crop types has been an important coping mechanism for agrarian societies during wars in Nigeria, Uganda or South Sudan (Kuol 2014;Adelaja and George 2019a;El Bushra and Piza-Lopez 1994). Also in Tigray, like in most war situations, farmers prioritised cropping in areas out of sight of troops.…”

Challenges and resilience of an indigenous farming system during wartime (Tigray, North Ethiopia)

“…During the Tigray war, non-agricultural strategies were not available, neither the use of remittances (Ellis 2000) due to blocking of the bank sector, nor off-farm labor (Bolton 2020;FAO 2017) due to the overall collapse of the local economy (Oxford Analytica 2022; Ibreck and de Waal 2021). Among the wide array of possible coping strategies in times of crises (Morton 2007;Davies 2016;Swearingen and Bencherifa 2000;Ziervogel 2004), the local farmers only remained with (i) the indigenous seed supply system (hence restocking critical plant genetic resources) (Sperling and McGuire 2010), (ii) a perfect understanding of farmland management under adverse conditions, (iii) the use of fallowing (possibly accompanied by the strategic use of a single plow operation), (iv) changes in the relative importance of crops (Swearingen and Bencherifa 2000;Kuol 2014;Macrae and Zwi 1994;Adelaja and George 2019), and (v) an indigenous social security system, called "idir" (Maxwell et al 2010).…”