The Limited Times

Armed conflicts continue during the pandemic

4/10/2020, 6:19:16 PM


If some truces have been announced, everywhere on the planet the fighting continues, the martyred populations are now threatened by the virus.

In 1918, the Spanish flu did not interrupt the fighting of the First World War. But the epidemic undoubtedly contributed to accelerating the end of hostilities. It weighed on strengths and minds. The hospitals were filling up and the trenches were weakening. In Berlin, the writer Kurt Tucholsky had dared a warning: " It is not a flu, nor a cold stroke or a phthisis, it is a German political crisis ", he had written, seeming to anticipate the defeat. The virus has killed 25 to 50 million people worldwide.

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A century later, the threat of the coronavirus was identified by the military. It has already changed the form of certain conflicts. In the Philippines and Cameroon, a truce has been declared by separatist or rebel groups. In Afghanistan, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged the Taliban to accept a humanitarian pause. In Yemen, a cease-fire has been declared by the coalition led by Arabia

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