Category: Africa

CONFLICTS IN THE YOUNG STATES
Belgium hastily released its Congo colony into freedom in 1960. The result was chaotic turmoil and tendencies to split, which only subsided after 1965. Portugal, on the other hand, tried to bind its colonies even more closely to the mother country as overseas provinces. It was only after the revolution of 1974 that it renounced its colonial claims just as hastily. As a result, a civil war developed in Angola.

Because of its apartheid policy, with which the white minority discriminated against the black majority for decades, South Africa came under pressure from the world public. For a long time it did not follow the withdrawal of the mandate over South West Africa (Namibia). After bloody unrest in the 1980s, apartheid was abolished in 1990 and Namibia was given independence. In 1994 Nelson Mandela became the first black president after the first free elections.

In 1993, Ethiopia had to accept the secession of Eritrea, which subsequently led to warlike conflicts.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the bloody proxy conflicts that had been waged between 1960 and 1989 by the USA and the USSR in Africa also ended. This enabled democratization tendencies to emerge in some African countries in the course of the “ good governance ” discussion in the 1990s. Nevertheless, to this day there are no other continents as many armed conflicts and internally displaced persons as in Africa.

There were profound changes in North Africa, where in the course of the Arab Spring there were bloody clashes and political upheavals in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia as well as unrest, mass protests and government reshuffles in Sudan, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.

The youngest state is the Republic of South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war. The political status of the Western Sahara territory is currently unclear. The UN is pushing for a referendum to decide on independence or affiliation with Morocco. The Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa are relics of the colonial era.

Africa – population
The population density in the different regions of Africa reflects the possibilities of economic use. A large part of the continent consists of arid areas that are hardly suitable for agriculture and are therefore extremely sparsely populated. In contrast, for example, are the river oases in the arid regions, impressively recognizable by the Nile oasis. More humid mountainous countries with partially fertile soils from volcanic ash such as Ethiopia, Rwanda or Burundi are among the more densely populated regions. The same applies to the conveniently located, partly also climatically favored coastal areas in North or West Africa. For more information about the continent of Africa, please check topb2bwebsites.com.