Welcome to the July issue of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project’s (ACLED) Conflict Trends report. Each month, ACLED researchers gather, analyse and publish data on political vio-lence in Africa in realtime. Weekly updates to realtime conflict event data are published on the ACLED website, and are also available through our research partners at Climate Change and Afri-can Political Stability (CCAPS).
This month’s issue focuses on the shift in political strategy and increased lethality of violence in Burundi, the de-escalation of conflict between Malian forces and the Coordination of Move-ments of Azawad (CMA) in Mali, increased coordi-nation between rebel forces in South Sudan, vio-lence against Darfuri students in Sudan, and com-peting strategies of violent Islamist groups in Tu-nisia. Two Special Focus Topics explore reporting lags in realtime conflict data and state fragility and armed conflict across Africa.
Elsewhere on the continent, Egypt’s Sinai Prov-ince witnessed dramatic clashes between the military and an Islamic State off-shoot, violence continues to decline in Nigeria and hit-and-run attacks by Al-Shabaab were reported in Somalia.
