{"id":6760,"date":"2017-12-06T08:23:15","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T07:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ipisresearch.be\/?p=6760"},"modified":"2020-09-07T13:25:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T11:25:10","slug":"roadblock-rebels-ipis-maps-important-mechanism-conflict-funding-central-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipisresearch.be\/fr\/roadblock-rebels-ipis-maps-important-mechanism-conflict-funding-central-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Roadblock rebels: IPIS maps important mechanism of conflict funding in Central Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

 IPIS puts roadblocks on the map as key mechanism of conflict funding besides natural resources, revealing its devastating scope in funding armed actors in Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic <\/strong><\/p>\n

Mapping over a thousand roadblocks, two IPIS reports released today have uncovered the shocking extent of armed predation on trade routes in conflict-ridden Central Africa. Roadblocks, they claim, have netted armed groups around 6 million Euros annually in the impoverished Central African Republic<\/a> alone. Strangling development and livelihoods, attracting violent confrontations and generating millions in revenues, roadblocks are as crucial to continuing conflict in Central Africa as natural resources, experts claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts time for the international community to broaden its scope beyond conflict minerals\u201d, argues Peer Schouten, IPIS coordinator for the new research.<\/p>\n

The DR Congo<\/a> and the CAR<\/a> are often used as poster children for \u2018conflict minerals\u2019 concerns. The International Peace Information Service (IPIS) has substantiated such concerns by mapping the extent of armed presence at mining sites<\/a> in DR Congo, last highlighting an armed presence at over half of the 1,635 mining sites it has visited.<\/p>\n

Experts always knew that rebels didn\u2019t rely on revenues from mining sites alone. However, without large-scale data, it has been difficult to make other funding mechanisms visible. IPIS\u2019s new research, in collaboration with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), sheds new and crucial light on how roadblocks provide an additional and substantial revenue stream for armed groups in Central Africa. By mapping over a thousand roadblocks in DR Congo and CAR, IPIS literally puts roadblocks on the map as a key means of conflict funding<\/p>\n

The two separate reports pinpoint 1082 roadblocks:<\/p>\n