The climate crisis is escalating and already causing massive disruptions to livelihoods across the globe. One feared downstream effect of the climate crisis is the outbreak and intensification of violent local conflicts between loosely organised groups over land and resources.

The perspective that climate change exacerbates communal conflict is important. However, it overlooks that these conflicts mostly take place in contexts also embroiled in violence between governments and rebel groups

According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, communal conflicts kill thousands of people each year. Often, they leave massive destruction in their wake. Inter-communal violence in Mali in 2018, for instance, killed over 200 civilians in the Mopti region alone. The violence drove thousands from their homes and caused widespread hunger.

The perspective that climate change exacerbates communal conflict is important. However, this perspective overlooks that these conflicts take place almost exclusively in countries also engulfed in civil war between governments and rebel groups.

The concurrence of communal violence and civil war has important implications for how analysts and peacebuilding practitioners need to view such violence. We conducted research on wartime communal conflict in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria. Based on this research, we have mapped communal conflicts as embedded in civil war. Here, we highlight two implications for managing and resolving such conflicts.

Communal conflict is now a wartime phenomenon

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program collects data on organised violence globally, and maps civil war and communal conflict deaths. Since 1989, the share of communal conflict deaths recorded in civil war-affected countries has soared from 49% in 1989–2006 to 88% in 2007–2023. In 2023, 95% of all communal conflicts unfolded in civil war-affected societies, including Sudan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Myanmar. Nigeria, for instance, is grappling with a prolonged civil war against the violent extremist groups known as Boko Haram. At the same time, there are many communal conflicts in Nigeria, including between sedentary farmers and nomadic pastoralists.

Communal conflicts take place increasingly during civil war

The concurrence of civil war and local conflict is not surprising. Civil wars give rise to many structural drivers of conflict, such as economic recession, resource scarcity, and large-scale displacement. Civil wars also erode the state’s monopoly on violence, thereby creating a security dilemma between rival communities. In addition, civil wars transform social fabrics by empowering young, violent actors at the expense of traditional authorities. All this leads to the breakdown of established conflict management mechanisms.

The deadliest communal conflicts now occur in civil war-affected countries

A more complex relationship

Yet, the relationship between local conflict and civil war is more complex. Peacekeeping operations deployed to help end civil wars can have a positive side-effect of reducing communal tensions. Rebel groups can mediate in, and thereby manage, conflicts between communities.

Spiralling communal conflicts can undermine attempts to settle civil wars. The massive displacement caused by civil war can shift communal conflicts to other areas, or suppress them completely.

Local conflicts in civil war do not escalate everywhere at the same time. Peacebuilding practitioners need to pay attention to when and where conflicts escalate

Moreover, local conflicts in civil war do not escalate everywhere at the same time. This demands deeper insights on the spatial and temporal patterns of spillover effects. Peacebuilding practitioners need to pay close attention to when and where conflicts are likely to escalate.

We lack understanding of the more complex interlinkages between communal conflict and civil war. Systematic analyses of the links between the two phenomena are still rare. Nevertheless, our research on wartime communal conflicts points to two key implications for the management and resolution of these conflicts.

Civil war parties foment communal violence

First, the embeddedness of contemporary communal conflicts in civil wars stresses the need to scrutinise the involvement of the civil war parties in these conflicts. State security forces, rebel groups, and militias often play a critical role in instigating communal tensions, arming communal militias, and accompanying perpetrators of communal violence.

In Mali, for example, the concentrated effort by Islamist armed groups to recruit among the pastorialist Peuhl has 'inflamed tensions' with the Bambara and Dogon communities. During the Ivorian civil war, our research shows that militias fighting on behalf of Laurent Gbagbo's government played a critical and active role in fuelling communal conflicts. Likewise, Nigerian state governments supported vigilantes of farming communities against so-called bandit militias. These militias, in turn, were wooed by Boko Haram.

Civil wars and communal conflicts should be addressed as interlinked phenomena

Armed actors play a prominent role in inflaming and sustaining communal conflicts. We should therefore address civil wars and communal conflicts as interlinked phenomena. Analysts need to look beyond the main parties to communal conflicts and consider what role other armed actors assume in those conflicts. Peacebuilding practitioners must assess the implications of the interlinkages for the effectiveness of their interventions.

Civil war parties as potential conflict management partners

Civil war parties can thus play a significant role in triggering and sustaining local conflicts. Local conflict management can be difficult if these actors are excluded from the process. Government forces and rebel groups embroiled in communal conflicts have the capacity to singlehandedly ruin any agreement.

Excluding civil war parties from conflict management precludes those parties from helping to prevent, curb, and resolve communal violence

Excluding the civil war parties also overlooks the possibility that they can take active steps to help prevent, curb, and resolve communal violence. Our recent research on the Ivorian civil war demonstrates how the Forces Nouvelles rebels took measures to ease ethnic tensions and manage violence, including by mediating local peace agreements.

Far from all armed groups make suitable partners for conflict management. However, armed groups seeking legitimacy, who strive to improve their international reputation and build positive relationships with civilians, have at least some incentives to become local peacemakers.

Pitfalls and opportunities for conflict resolution

Studying and raising awareness about how climate change affects the risk of communal conflict is an important task. However, our research demonstrates that doing so without considering the fact that contemporary communal conflicts are largely a wartime phenomenon risks missing the broader context in which such violence takes place, including pitfalls and opportunities for conflict management and resolution.

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