More than 5 million have died in Congo alone since 1998, the International Rescue Committee has estimated. Add together the casualties in just the dozen countries that I cover, and you have a death toll of tens of thousands of civilians each year.

Quiet places such as Tanzania are the lonely exceptions even user-friendly, tourist-filled Kenya blew up in 2008. This is the story across much of Africa, where nearly half of the continent’s 53 countries are home to an active conflict or a recently ended one. What is the military or political objective of ramming an assault rifle inside a woman and pulling the trigger? Terror has become an end, not just a means. That’s why we see stunning atrocities like eastern Congo’s rape epidemic, where armed groups in recent years have sexually assaulted hundreds of thousands of women, often so sadistically that the victims are left incontinent for life. Most of today’s African fighters are not rebels with a cause they’re predators. soldier (now a rarity in Africa) to soldier vs. I’ve witnessed up close - often way too close - how combat has morphed from soldier vs. But most of my time is spent immersed in these un-wars. My job as the New York Times‘ East Africa bureau chief is to cover news and feature stories in 12 countries. But what is spreading across Africa like a viral pandemic is actually just opportunistic, heavily armed banditry. What we are seeing is the decline of the classic African liberation movement and the proliferation of something else - something wilder, messier, more violent, and harder to wrap our heads around. Look closely at some of the continent’s most intractable conflicts, from the rebel-laden creeks of the Niger Delta to the inferno in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and this is what you will find.

Today’s rebels seem especially uninterested in winning converts, content instead to steal other people’s children, stick Kalashnikovs or axes in their hands, and make them do the killing. They couldn’t care less about taking over capitals or major cities - in fact, they prefer the deep bush, where it is far easier to commit crimes. The combatants don’t have much of an ideology they don’t have clear goals.

There is a very simple reason why some of Africa’s bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars.

Armed conflicts in africa facts