deadly clashes with Kurdish groups near the Iran-Iraq border, who have intensified their armed struggle for autonomy in the past few years. After a worrying trend in recent years, Cameroon has leapt up the index amid sharply escalating political violence in the country’s north-west and south-west regions. Peaceful demonstrations in 2016 against decades-old political and economic marginalization of the country’s Anglophone regions by the Frenchdominated government has led to a separatist movement for an independent state, Ambazonia. Thousands of people have been killed or disappeared at the hands of government forces and numerous emerging separatist groups, who have committed a range of abuses, often against civilians. At the same time, Boko Haram attacks persist in the far north, adding to the growing numbers of IDPs and a deepening humanitarian crisis. President Paul Biya, in power since 1982, has labelled the separatists as terrorists and social media ‘a new form of terrorism’. Facing prolonged internet shutdowns and scant international attention, protesters, and later separatists, have relied heavily on Twitter hashtags to mobilize. In Chad, following the violent repression of antiausterity protests, President Idriss Déby pushed through constitutional reforms in April 2018 that enable him to stay in power until 2033. In the lead-up to this, authorities launched a social media ban – now in its second year – which aims at stymying the ability of critics to mobilize. The government also claims that social media aids the recruitment of rebel coalition fighters, who have grown bolder in their attempts to overthrow Déby’s regime: in February 2019, the Chadian Army relied on French airstrikes to repel a heavily armed rebel convoy arriving from southern Libya. Fatal clashes between government forces and militants over control of gold mines in Tibesti region escalated in August 2018, and in south-west Chad, attacks on civilians and security personnel by the Boko Haram faction known as Islamic State West Africa Province have risen in frequency and scale from 2018 into 2019. While violence has now reached unprecedented levels, Mali has been the epicentre of instability extending beyond its borders since a rebellion by allied Tuaregs and jihadists in 2012 was confronted by French military intervention. From 2018, northern and central Mali saw an escalation of deadly assaults by Islamist armed groups linked to al-Qaeda, and to a lesser extent ISIS, on security personnel and members of the UN 8 peacekeeping mission. Many civilians have been killed, often by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on roadways, and the army has committed atrocities, including summary executions during counterterrorism operations. Deep-rooted communal tensions exploded in 2018, resulting in hundreds of deaths from attacks and reprisals between Dogon and Peuhl (Fulani) ethnic groups, with members of the latter being viewed by the former as potential recruits of extremist groups. At the heart of the tensions are issues to do with land use and access to grazing and water. In April 2019, facing mass protests against its failure to provide security, Mali’s recently elected government resigned after some 160 Peuhl herders were brutally massacred in Ogossagou village. The aftermath of Venezuela’s deeply flawed and contested re-election of Nicolás Maduro in May 2018 has fuelled fears of escalating violence. Thousands of injuries and more than 100 deaths have resulted from continued clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters, and security forces have acted with impunity in violently cracking down on the latter. Provocations by domestic and international actors, namely the US, have deepened the country’s political and economic crisis and led to a failed uprising in April 2019 by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has been endorsed by some members of the international community as the ‘interim President’. The government has strategically alternated between blocking and allowing the use of social media, on which both sides have relied to construct legitimacy and mobilize supporters. Venezuela’s worsening situation, including skyrocketing inflation and a public health crisis, have led to the largest exodus in recent Latin American history, with some 2.7 million Venezuelans having left the country since 2015. The country has continued its climb up the index, following on from a rise in 2018’s table. Niger is facing the spillover effects of conflicts raging in neighbouring Mali and Nigeria as well as internal drivers of insecurity and political instability. Violence in the border regions has resulted in population displacement and contributed to the country’s deepening humanitarian crisis. In the southeast Diffa region, near the border with Nigeria, ISIS-linked Boko Haram fighters and other supporting militants continue to strike state security forces. Near the Malian border in the western Tillabéri region, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has launched attacks on military and police officers and Peoples under Threat 2019