Issue

Conflict and Peace Building

Nearly 30 years after the Rwandan genocide, thousands of maimed amputees remind us of the war that took 500,000 lives in 100 days. War leaves marks that cannot be erased—not only in Rwanda, but on every continent.

Reporting from Conflict and Peacebuilding examines the roots of conflict, whether it be religious hatred, sectarian rivalry, a security vacuum, the struggle for natural resources, or the desperation that results from poverty.

Pulitzer Center journalists also cover war’s aftermath: the transitional governments that result in chaos, diplomacy that goes awry, peace talks that never end, and the people who suffer the consequences, young and old. We see the children who go hungry, lose their homes, leave school, become combatants, or join the jihad.

Often the end to conflict leaves turmoil in its wake while the road to peace seems circuitous: In South Sudan, rebel-commanders-turned politicians plunge the country into civil war. In the U.S., troops return home from one war only to be re-deployed to another. But everywhere, in every conflict, there are also voices crying out for peace, determined to heal the divide.

 

Conflict and Peace Building

Syria’s Teen Documentarian

Muhammad Najem became a celebrity for his video reports from his war-racked hometown of Eastern Ghouta in Syria. Now displaced to Istanbul, he wants desperately to get back home and continue his work.

Taxi in Tbilisi

From actor in St. Petersburg to taxi driver in Tbilisi: one displaced person's search for a place to belong.

Ukraine: Women of the War

Five years after the conflict on the eastern front of Ukraine began, how have women defined the war? And, perhaps, has the war created a new landscape for women?

Afghanistan: Failure of Expectation

The Taliban is not the only threat facing Afghanistan. The rise in poppy cultivation places the country at risk of moving from narco-economy to narco-state, and as eradication efforts continue to prove wildly unsuccessful, the threat increases. Yet the reasons for poppy's growing influence in the country are not...

Iraq: Death of a Nation? (revisited)

"Iraq: Death of a Nation" examines how the U.S. invasion and occupation created a multi-faceted civil war in which the U.S. is now actively arming multiple factions. Last summer, the project focused on how Iraq's refugee crisis was created by the invasion and the fighting that has followed. This...

Congo's Conflict: Profit and Loss

Conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo have resulted in millions of Congolese lives lost, while benefiting the trade of small arms and valuable minerals like coltan.

Another Darfur

As the world watches Darfur to the West, government harassments in East Sudan have forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Like their counterparts in Darfur, eastern rebels complain that successive governments in Khartoum have left their region under-developed, whilst exploiting its natural resources.

East Sudan is...

Our Choice Too: On the Edge in Darfur

Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center executive director, traveled to Sudan in early 2006 to investigate the effectiveness of the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

This Week: Syria's Lawless Land

Impunity for Syria's war criminals, new HIV treatments in South Africa, and a new approach to deradicalization in France in this week's newsletter.