Will coronavirus slow the world's conflicts -- or intensify them?

Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Sahel... with the great powers focused intently on the COVID-19 virus, will armed conflicts across the world decrease in severity or intensify? Experts as well as diplomats at the United Nations say there is a serious risk of the latter.

For guerrilla fighters and extremist groups, "it's a clear godsend," said Bertrand Badie, a specialist in international relations at France's Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).

When the "powerful become powerless," he told AFP, one can see "the revenge of the weak over the strong." In recent days, some 30 Malian soldiers were killed in an attack in northern Mali blamed on jihadists, without drawing any sharp reaction from the Security Council.

In Libya, and Syria's Idlib region -- the object of intense diplomatic attention before the coronavirus stole the spotlight -- fighting continues.

Evoking the "potentially devastating impact of #Covid-19 in #Idlib and elsewhere in Syria," the UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, called on Twitter for all parties to show restraint.

"If anyone -- incredibly -- still needed a reason to stop the fighting there," she added, "this is it." Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, issued a similar plea: "At a time when the world is struggling to fight a pandemic, the focus of the parties must shift away from fighting one another to ensuring that the population will not face even graver risks."
With the news media obsessively focused on Covid-19, Malley said, "these conflicts, however brutal and violent they may be, will for many people become unseen and unheard."