(a) Loss of Life
Loss of life is one of the most obvious and immediate consequences of armed conflict. UNICEF for instance, reports that in the last decade alone, an estimated 1.5 million children have been killed in armed conflict are not limited to deaths of soldiers or those involved in some form of physical combat in the war zone. The consequences also extend to the otherwise passive and in many cases innocent but vulnerable members of populations, who include mainly women, children and the aged. In some cases, the aftermath of armed conflict spreads to the immediate neighborhoods.
(b) Inadequate Health services
Many areas under war lack health services. This is because of reduced health budgets, as most of the economic resources of the countries at war to meeting military costs; damage and destruction of health facilities; lack of doctors and other medical personnel and shortages or even complete lack of drugs and other essential materials, etc. But precise impacts of these events on patterns of service utilization and availability as well as the health status of the affected populations are difficult to determine due to suppression of information by the incumbent governments and also due to the interdependence between the health systems and the influence of numerous other factors associated with political economic and ecological upheavals.
(c) Food production
War is known to interfere directly with food production e.g by preventing farmers from planting and harvesting on time; reducing the populations? production capacities in many other ways. Data from Eritrea, for example, indicates that a quarter of the villages were devastated during the 1984 planting season, because 13,000 men had been conscripted, while 40,000 acres of land had been mined or destroyed; 2,500 homes were destroyed, 35,000 quintals of food confiscated, and nearly 44,000 livestock and 5,800 people killed and goods worth 1.3 million Birr stolen. These forms of disturbance were instrumental in the non-cultivation of about 40% of the agricultural land and led to severe increase in cases of malnutrition among the citizenry (Ibid: 38,39)
(d) Food distribution
Food distribution in areas of armed conflict also faces frequent interruptions, due to logistical problems as encountered in the transportation of aid, lack of trucks and refusal by government forces to permit convoys to pass through their territory. The objective of the latter behavior is to stem any advances or grains, on the part of the opposition, through deliberate starvation and depopulation of the rebel held territories (Glorgis, 1989).
(e) Insecurity
During times of conflict various militia groups attack at will because law and order cannot be assured by the state apparatus.
(f) Displacement of persons
Displacement of persons can occur at macro or micro level. Pertinent to this course is the macro level and for that matter the case of refugees. Although there are no accurate statistics on the number of refugees and displaced persons, situations of armed conflicts are known to create a mass flow of refugees. Data from UNICEF (1994) shows that in the last decade alone refugees while 12 million more have been uprooted from their communities.
As a social category, the refugees like any other displaced persons are vulnerable lot. They suffer from malnutrition and infectious diseases, higher mortality and morbidity rates, deficiencies in food supply (Toole and Waldman, 1990). Desegregation of such data translates into more horrifying conditions of higher death rates for women and children (Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 1989). This differential outcome in health conditions among women and children as compared to the men, has been attributed to the social and cultural preferential feeding and other practices which tend to discriminate against women and girls (Hamad, 1992).
In the process of becoming refugees, the affected individuals and families are stripped off their economic assets and left to depend on humanitarian assistance. This leads to an enormous disruption of the social basis for economic production and other activities. As such, these displacements erode some of the most profound attributes of society, for example, by splitting families. Today, thousands of children are either orphaned or split from their families, due to effort of armed conflict.
(g) Cultural Disruptions
The consequences of war to the lives of communities and the survival of their culture are invisible and cannot immediately be seen but have more long-term effects. A good illustration is given of the previous unity of the Anyak which was disrupted during occupation of their territory by two different powers, (to) forcing the Anyak to fight each other, while the presence of so many foreigners (Dinka, Nuer, Europeans, etc) seriously eroded the traditional lifestyles of the Anyak.
(h) Ecological Destruction
Ecology may be defined as ?the study of ecosystems?. ?An ecosystem is in turn an integrated unit consisting of interacting and animals whose survival depends on the maintenance of a biotic as well as biotic structures bad functions (Kumar, 1977) plants and animals existing in any physical environment with its b biotic or non-living elements of sunlight, atmosphere, water and soil or rock thus form a biotic or living community (Glorgis, 1993).
(i) Psychological effects
The Psychological effects of armed conflict just like the physical effects result from, combined experiences of hunger, exhaustion, endemic fear, sorrow, despair, solitude, and sickness (Waal, 1990). The real impacts of wart, however, cannot be measured and may never be understood as they reach their severest levels in unknown future.
Titany answered the question on August 11, 2021 at 05:57