Year of living dangerously
Thousands are dying from the Ukraine war, protests crackdown, disasters and illegal migration.
Twenty twenty-two as a dangerous year is an understatement. While the Covid-19 pandemic is still claiming lives albeit fewer than in 2020, a new war that erupted in Europe took its own deadly toll and sent shockwaves across the globe. The Russian attack on Ukraine mainly defined 2022 with natural disasters, regional tension, violent protests and inflation also impacting many countries. As 2023 beckons, here is a lookback at six major events that made 2022 as another year of living dangerously for many based on reports from Agence France-Presse.
Ukraine invasion
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest invasion in Europe since World War II when he sent troops into Ukraine on 24 February, causing millions of Ukrainians to flee abroad.
The European Union and United States imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow and sent billions of dollars in aid plus arms to Ukraine.
By September, counter-attacking Ukrainian forces regained ground in the northeast and south. Putin hastily annexes four Ukrainian regions partly controlled by Russia, a move condemned as illegal by the United Nations.
In November, Russian forces retreat from the southern port of Kherson, ending an eight-month occupation. Putin ordered a partial mobilization to beef up the army with 200,000 recruits.
As the year ends, Russian strikes relentlessly batter Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power cuts across the country as winter sets in.
Fuel and food crisis
The invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions on Russia created an energy crisis as costs for gas and electricity soared globally. Britain saw its energy bills double over the space of a year. Rising energy prices are also a factor in Sri Lanka’s cost-of-living crisis, which in August forced its then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee abroad and escape an angry mob.
Inflation soared globally, prompting central banks to aggressively hike interest rates, raising fears of another major debt crisis.
Agricultural markets in the region overreacted and anticipated wheat supply problems, leading to a surge in prices, France 24 reported. The war also prevented the shipment of Ukrainian and Russian wheat and grains threatening up to 13 million people with malnutrition and starvation.
Protests
Abortion rights activists in the US protested the US Supreme Court decision in June to overturn the landmark 1973 “Roe v Wade” decision, which enshrined a constitutional right to abortion nationwide, returning the issue to individual states.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest for alleged violations of the country’s Islamic dress code sparked the biggest protests in Iran in years. On the street and on social media women and girls defiantly removed their headscarves in an unprecedented challenge to the country’s clerical leadership.
The Oslo-based monitor Iran Human Rights on 19 December said Iran’s security forces have killed at least 469 people in the protests while at least 14,000 people have been arrested, according to the UN. Iran is also quelling the protests by sentencing some of the protesters to death.
Hundreds of people protested against the
Russian strikes relentlessly batter Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Urumqi, Wuhan and other cities in China, some even daring to call for President Xi Jinping’s resignation.
Regional tensions
China’s warplane incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone skyrocketed while Beijing held the largest military exercises in decades around the self-ruled island, raising alarm in Taipei.
North Korea conducted a record-breaking number of weapons tests this year, including firing intercontinental ballistic missiles, which it is banned from testing by UN sanctions.
Pyongyang also ratcheted up tensions with Seoul, including firing artillery into maritime buffer zones and this week sending unmanned drones into South Korea’s airspace.
Disasters
Europe sweltered through the hottest summer in its recorded history, with the mercury topping 40 degrees Celsius for the first time in Britain. Parts of the Arctic and Antarctic, China and the US also experienced record temperatures.
Flooding in Pakistan affected vast swathes of the country, Nigeria suffered its worst floods in a decade and parts of drought-hit Somalia faced the threat of famine.
The football stadium stampede in the Javan city of Malang in October left 135 people dead, including more than 40 children. The stampede took place after police fired tear gas into packed stands when fans invaded the pitch at the end of a match.
The crush in the narrow alleyways of the Itaewon entertainment district in Seoul, South Korea in November killed 156 mostly costumed young party-goers looking for a night of post-pandemic fun.
Migration
The International Organization for Migration has recorded nearly 2,000 migrants as dead or missing in the Mediterranean Sea this year, including a two-month-old baby recovered dead from a migrant wreckage off Lesbos, Greece on 17 November.
Relatives of around 180 Rohingya refugees adrift on a boat for weeks in the Indian Ocean presume that all those on board are now dead, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said this week.