COVID-19 and Civil Conflict: The Cases of Syria, Libya and Yemen

Introduction 

Since February, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread across the world and, at the time of writing, has infected more than 16 million people and killed over 649,000.1 While most news coverage has focused on the United States’ and Europe’s responses to the virus, other countries had faced bleak futures even before the global pandemic. Specifically, Syria, Yemen, and Libya have been locked into incredibly destructive internal conflicts for the past six years or longer, further heightening the risks that accompany the pandemic. Some leaders and scholars hoped that the global pandemic and its humanitarian costs would incentivize the warring parties to, at least temporarily, freeze their conflicts and focus on cooperation against the virus. On March 23, 2020, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterrez called for a worldwide ceasefire and committed the UN to help provide relief and establish peace in areas that were already at a high risk for the virus to spread. Has this ceasefire call worked? Has the trajectory of these conflicts changed because of COVID-19? Or are the parties running headlong into yet another humanitarian crisis?