Africans frequently criticise the West for only highlighting the calamities to emerge from their continent. They have a point. Images of skeletal babies and crazed gunmen frequently overshadow the diversity of Africa and its countless stories of human courage, spirit and imagination. Even so, the events of the past 12 months will have given such critics little comfort.
A variety of plagues, some of biblical proportions, tore across east and central Africa. Wars raged, famine threatened and disease, particularly AIDS, cast its deadly net even wider. Brave talk of an "African renaissance", vaunted loudly by President Clinton only two years ago, had an increasingly hollow ring to it.
The baking deserts and muggy jungles of Africa's two largest countries - Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo - were stained with the blood of seemingly intractable civil conflict. One of the smallest nations, Burundi, was wracked by a complex, ethnically propelled war to which even Nelson Mandela failed to find a solution.
And in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia and Eritrea doggedly battled for a strip of barren land in a conflict motivated more by stubborn pride than by national interest. The Ethiopians won a victory of sorts. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the south, millions of their fellow countrymen were dying of starvation.
For the first time since 1984, the world was disturbed by pictures of skeletal Ethiopians gasping for food and water as the region reeled under its worst drought in living memory. Kenya, Somalia and Sudan were also badly affected and some 20 million people suffered. Unlike 1984, there was no Bob Geldof, but a rapid response by international aid agencies staved off a full-blown crisis.
Further south, the political rather than the natural order was disturbed. Zimbabwe's one-time liberation hero, President Robert Mugabe, sought to deflect attention from his waning popularity with a populist campaign of seizing white-owned farms. War veterans and thugs from the ruling party carried out illegal occupations, raped women and intimidated farm workers. Many people, including some white farmers, were killed.
Zimbabweans, however, were neither bowed by Mugabe's intimidation nor hoodwinked by his tricks. The opposition MDC party, led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai, came from nowhere to take just under half of the available seats in June's landmark elections. Since then, the economy has continued to crumble under the strain of hyperinflation and a collapsed currency - the products of disastrous economic mismanagement. Analysts believe Mugabe's grip on power is slipping due to pressure from the burgeoning MDC and reformers within his own party, ZANU-PF.
But whether his eventual departure will be characterised by statesmanlike grace or further bloodshed remains to be seen. His form of this year, unfortunately, suggests the latter.
Another country that was once a great African hope slid alarmingly towards social and political chaos. Rioting became a daily occurrence in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, as severe power rationing saw even more businesses collapse and economic growth ground to a halt. The deepening social malaise found the most unlikely outlets: in one incident, hundreds of schoolchildren rampaged through a suburban neighbourhood, erecting barricades and looting beer, after a classmate was killed by a bus. In another, more than 140 slum-dwellers died after drinking a deadly homebrew known as chang'aa, or "kill-me-quick". Despite the warnings, their neighbours continued to drink the deadly brew.
Kenya's ruler of 22 years, President Daniel ???????????arap Moi, has never been less popular. However, he remains ambiguous about whether he will run for reelection in 2002. Analysts say the next 18 months will be Kenya's most crucial period since independence in 1963.
Where was the good news? Perhaps on the shores on Lake Victoria, where Uganda and Tanzania continued their steady economic rehabilitation and confirmed their position as darlings of international donors, including the Irish government. In Uganda, progress was made despite the impression that its countryside was the setting for a blockbuster horror film.
In March, at least 500 followers of a sinister Christian cult, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, perished in grisly fashion when their church went up in a blaze. Initial speculation of a mass suicide was revised when several hundred more bodies were discovered in secret mass graves. The victims, including hundreds of children, had been strangled, clubbed or hacked to death.
In October, the deadly Ebola virus struck the northern town of Gulu. The town saw medical workers dressed in space-age white suits disposing of the dead as more than 150 people met a painful, bloody end before the outbreak was brought under control. It was too late, however, for the irreparable damage done to Uganda's tourist industry.
The Democratic Republic of Congo lived up to its cliche image as the dark heart of Africa. Fighting between armies from six countries and three rebel groups raged on, all intent on either toppling or propping up President Laurent Kabila. A peace agreement, signed more than a year ago, was widely disregarded. Some friends were more busy fighting each other than the common enemy: a murky dispute between rebel sponsors Uganda and Rwanda flared into a full-blown battle in June, claiming the lives of 620 innocent civilians in the eastern city of Kisangani.
Life was equally grim behind government lines. President Kabila became increasingly isolated as the capital, Kinshasa, crumbled around him. Desperate food and fuel shortages saw fear become the instrument of rule as his security apparatus brutally cracked down on suspected dissidents. All across the vast country, the humanitarian crisis deepened. One US aid agency estimated the number of war-related deaths at 1.7 million, while the UN warned that the crisis had moved into a "new phase".
Unfortunately for the suffering Congolese, there is no end in sight. A modest deployment of 5,500 UN peace monitors failed to get off the ground because there was no peace to monitor. And with both sides apparently incapable of capturing more than half of the vast country, most of which is carpeted with dense jungle, the war is there to be lost, not won.
Amid the darkness, one pinprick of light shone from the most unlikely of quarters. Somalia had been a wild, lawless and ungoverned place for almost a decade when, last August, previously warring factions made peace and elected an interim administration. The new government has started its fragile rule from a Mogadishu hotel and promises a return to stability. But it will first have to persuade Somalia's many warlords to lay down their guns.
Despite their disparate presidents and politics, however, one issue united every man, woman and child in Sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS continued its onward march with terrifying speed. In 2000, three million Africans died and almost four million more were infected with HIV.
Some countries, such as Uganda, have successfully curbed the menace but most others, such as Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, are only now realising the horror that has been unleashed. Some 25 million Africans are estimated to be infected with HIV, a jump of 17 per cent on 1999. Barring a miracle cure, most of them will be dead within 10 years.