Disaster Briefs, 7/22/2025

With no hurricane activity this week (so far) in the Atlantic basin, I’m focusing this issue of disaster brief’s on key developments in international conflict, where some progress has been made toward peace in the DRC and Azerbaijan, while conditions in the Middle East continue to destabilize as Israel wages its campaign of terror in the region.

I’ll be covering fewer total conflicts in this issue, but with more detailed background about the conflicts, tracing the roots of these conflicts over centuries.

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Democratic Republic of Congo

Background:
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a nation haunted by grandeur and betrayal, its story unfolding like a Conrad novel scrawled in blood and ambition.

Carved into a personal fiefdom by Belgium’s King Leopold II in the late 19th century, the Congo was brutalized for rubber and ivory under a regime so savage it halved the population.

When independence came in 1960, it arrived not as a triumph but a calamity—without preparation, infrastructure, or unity.

The CIA helped orchestrate the assassination of the country's first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, a charismatic symbol of self-determination, and soon installed Mobutu Sese Seko, who cloaked kleptocracy in leopard-print hats and ruled for 32 years with Western backing.

When his regime finally collapsed in 1997, it sparked Africa’s World War, a conflagration drawing in nine nations and killing millions.

What followed was not peace but a chessboard of militias, foreign armies, and mining interests, all feeding on the DRC’s unimaginable wealth in cobalt, gold, and coltan, like flies to a carcass.

Elections came, but power rarely changed hands cleanly. The state became both prize and hostage, its vast jungles concealing not only minerals and violence but the simple, aching desire of a people long denied the right to shape their own fate.

Recent News:
The government of DRC signed a ceasefire agreement with M23 that was facilitated by Qatar on Saturday, with both pledging to sign an official peace treaty by mid-August. The DRC signed a peace treaty with Rwanda in June. Conflict in the DRC has led to about six million deaths in the last 30 years.

Ethiopia-Eritrea

Background:
The Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict is a tale written in scorched earth and silent trenches, where the ghosts of empire linger and borders are drawn not by consensus, but by conquest and revenge.

Eritrea, once an Italian colony and later absorbed into Ethiopia after World War II, found its voice in rebellion, waging a brutal 30-year war for independence that culminated in hard-won sovereignty in 1993.