"Us" Against "Them": Ethnicity in Conflict

With more than 5.4 million deaths, the Second Congo War, which began in 1998, is widely regarded as one of the deadliest conflicts since the Second World War. Although the Pretoria Agreement formally ended the war in 2003, the violence did not end in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): indeed in Kivu, in the country’s north-east, armed confrontations have continued for more than two decades. Such conflicts starkly illustrate the political and ethnic dimensions of organised violence. The region’s abundant mineral wealth, particularly in coltan, has fuelled intense competition. Yet Kivu is also home to multiple ethnic communities, including the Nande, Banyarwanda (Hutu and Tutsi), Nyanga, Hunde and Tembo peoples. 

Since Congo’s independence in 1960, the region has remained marked by instability and recurrent ethnic tensions, and the proliferation of armed actors and local militias has turned Kivu into a tinderbox – where violence unfolds both between and within ethnic groups¹.

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Identities and internal divisions

Economic research has long demonstrated that ethnic identities tend to intensify during periods of conflict, and this debate is deeply rooted in Africa’s colonial history. Border-making, colonial administration and selective support for particular communities contributed to the institutionalisation of ethnic divisions. In several colonial contexts, favouring one group over another became a strategy of governance which depended on internal fragmentation. 

The idea – perhaps counterintuitive – that war can strengthen social cohesion and ethnic identity motivates Matteo Sestito’s study of ethnic conflict and intra-group cooperation across Africa from 2002 to 2015.

Identifiying ethnic conclict

To investigate this phenomenon, Sestito faced a major methodological challenge: geolocated conflict data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) database does not identify whether a conflict is ethnic in nature. Violence can involve state forces, rebel groups, militias, or protests without necessarily being ethnic in nature; it may instead stem from territorial, religious, or political disputes.

In the absence of comprehensive data on ethnic conflict, most existing studies have focused on localised case studies. Sestito assembled a new database comprising more than 1,900 armed groups operating across 36 African states, covering approximately 60 per cent of the continent’s land area.

To identify conflicts with an ethnic dimension, the researcher cross-referenced this data with a broad range of sources, including academic literature, reports from international and non-governmental organisations, and press coverage. This allowed him to determine which groups recruited, fought, or mobilised explicitly in the name of ethnic identity.