South Kordofan states remained dire. Evidence of the use of chemical weapons by government forces in the Jabel Marra region of Darfur demonstrated that the regime will continue attacking its civilian population without fear of accountability for its violations of international law. Despite the signing of the peace deal in South Sudan between government and rival forces, fighting continued in different parts of the country throughout the year, and escalated in the southern Equatoria region after heavy fighting broke out in the capital, Juba, in July. During the fighting, armed forces, particularly government soldiers, committed human rights violations including targeted killings and attacks including against humanitarian personnel. The UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was criticized for its failure to protect civilians during the fighting. A UN Security Council resolution to establish a regional protection force was not implemented. The UN Special Advisor on the prevention of Genocide and the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan raised the alarm that the stage was being set for a genocide. In CAR, despite peaceful elections in December 2015 and February 2016, the security situation deteriorated later in the year, threatening to plunge the country into more deadly violence. Armed groups launched numerous attacks: on 12 October, ex-Séléka fighters from at least two different factions killed at least 37 civilians, injured 60, and set fire to a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), in the city of Kaga Bandoro. Yet despite such bloodshed and suffering, the world’s attention arguably shifted even further away from Africa’s conflicts. Certainly, the international community’s response to conflict in the continent was woefully inadequate, as evidenced by the UN Security Council’s failure on sanctions on South Sudan, and the insufficient capacity of peacekeeping operations to protect civilians in CAR, South Sudan and Sudan. There were hardly any measures, including from the UN Security Council and the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, to put pressure 20 on the government of Sudan to allow humanitarian access and to investigate allegations of grave violations and abuses. The AU’s response to crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations and abuses committed in the context of conflict and crisis remained mostly slow, inconsistent and reactive rather than forming part of a comprehensive and consistent strategy. PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Africa’s conflicts – including in Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan – remained major drivers of the global refugee crisis, and the internal displacement of people within borders. Millions of women, children and men were still unable to return home, or were forced by new threats to flee into unknown dangers and uncertain futures. People from sub-Saharan Africa formed the majority of the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants travelling to Libya fleeing war, persecution or extreme poverty, often in the hope of transiting through the country to settle in Europe. Amnesty International’s research revealed horrifying abuses including sexual violence, killings, torture, and religious persecution along the smuggling routes to and through Libya. In northern Nigeria, at least two million people remained internally displaced – living in host communities and some in overcrowded camps with inadequate food, water and sanitation. Tens of thousands of IDPs were held in camps under armed guard by the military and Civilian Joint Task Force, which were accused of sexually exploiting women. Thousands of people have died in these camps due to severe malnutrition. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from CAR, Libya, Nigeria and Sudan continued to live in poor conditions in refugee camps in Chad. According to the UN, more than 300,000 people fled Burundi, most of them to refugee camps in neighbouring Rwanda and Tanzania. More than 1.1 million Somalis remained internally displaced, with another Amnesty International Report 2016/17