In the summer of 2010, an insurgency, waged by a newly-formed rebellion movement, escalated in eastern Creperia. It was originally believed to be an uprising against the totalitarian government of Creperia in pursuit of a regime change, until the insurgents had revealed that their real motives are to create a break-away independent country. The insurgents claimed that historically Creperia is a country formed on the land of several much older countries that existed prior to the formation of Creperia and thus they sought to recreate historical justice in the name of their ancestors. Since then, a low-level conflict between the government forces and the insurgents had been ravaging eastern Creperia.
On December 22, 2014, the stalemate conflict was reported as having reached its highest and most unstable peak as the separatists were reported to having overwhelmingly defeated the last of the Creperian military forces in the eastern part of the country. This lead to the insurgents claiming the east for themselves and declaring a new country called ‘Lumena’. Although the self-declared state in eastern Creperia was at first viewed as a completely new country only recently “established” by the rebels, the separatists themselves claimed that ‘Lumena’ was actually one of the countries that existed way before Creperia was ever formed and its recreation in its rightful territory was a restoration of international and historical justice. Nevertheless, no proof was discovered reinforcing the existence of ‘Lumena’ prior to the formation of Creperia and thus it lead to the government declaring the break-away country in the east as a fake state. This was followed by an authorization of a full-scale land, air and naval assault on the separatist-held east by the Creperian National Defense Force (CNDF) in pursuit of reclaiming the lost territory for Creperia.
During its early stages, the assault was declared as being very successful with the government forces being able to strike and overwhelm the unprepared and weakened separatists, thus being able to gain further access into ‘Lumena’, which lead to the continuation of the advance. The CNDF incursion continued successfully and in quick pace until December 26, 2014, when the government had reported that the number of casualties on the side of the Creperian Military has sky-rocketed and the advance further into ‘Lumena’ has slowed down. In addition, unlike their predecessors stationed along the demarcation line between Creperia and ‘Lumena’, who were using ceased Creperian weaponry, the incoming separatist reinforcements were spotted using more modern and advanced weaponry and equipment, which was recognized as different to the ones used by CNDF. Instead, investigations were carried out which lead to the determination that the weaponry and equipment used by the separatist forces located deeper in ‘Lumena’ was actually similar to the one used by the Sunrisian Defense Force (SDF), the official military of the neighboring Sunrisia. Moreover, there had been detections of foreign fighters among the ranks of the separatist positions, which greatly lead to the belief that a foreign power or even powers are definitely involved in some form. Due to the fact that the neighboring Sunrisia had been mobilizing military forces on the border for a certain period of time in attempt to prevent conflict spillovers beyond borders, the combination of gathered proof eventually lead to neighboring country becoming the primary suspect as the secret supporter of the separatists, which eventually started leading to the deterioration of relations between the two countries and even spawned a heated diplomatic argument.
Based on the collected proof and even multiple sources, the government of Creperia kept insisting that Sunrisia was secretly supporting the separatists in eastern Creperia and thus kept pressuring the administration of the neighboring country into both admitting and ceasing it’s aid to the insurgents. However, the government of Sunrisia denied all accusations and kept calling them Creperian allegations as the country stated that it is not in its foreign policy to become involved in other the internal affairs of other countries. Nevertheless, the government of Sunrisia did admit that it had received multiple requests for military aid from the separatists, all of which were turned down. Since then, both countries strongly stayed in their positions and attempted to persuade each other into changing their policy towards the issue, however, with little results on either behalf. The diplomatic conflict moved in a stalemate pace, until the government of Creperia had finally decided to take the first big step in bringing the opposing side to justice.
The first measure was the diplomatic-economic effort with Creperia imposing sanctions on Sunrisia. The government claimed that it was expected to be an effective measure and thus would force the neighboring country to cease its support to the insurgents after seeing what a threat would be brought to the economy. Nevertheless, the administration of Sunrisia called the sanctions unjust and unprovoked and resumed denying that it had any involvement in the conflict in eastern Creperia. The government of Creperia agreed to allow some time to pass before taking the next measures and see if Sunrisia’s worsening economy would eventually force the country to admit and end its help to the insurgents. However, no progress was made and no results were achieved, thus prompting Creperia to use the final measure – military force. On December 30, 2014, the government of Creperia authorized air strikes on Sunrisia and the naval blockade of the country’s territorial waters as a final tool of persuasion, which immediately received call outs from Sunrisia and were classified and as “an immediate act of war”, should they go into motion. Sunrisia imposed counter-sanctions and stated that there was still time to take a different path in the crisis to avoid an armed conflict, otherwise Sunrisia would be forced to not only defend itself, but also to retaliate. The government of Creperia was not intimidated and on January 1, 2015, air strikes were launched on Sunrisia followed by clashes between the fleets of the Creperian and Sunrisian Naval Forces. The government expected that this final measure would intimidate the neighboring country and force it to both admit its secret to support to the separatists and also cease it. Creperia was not intimidated by the previous statement that an attack on Sunrisia would be an act of war, as the administration was certain that the government of the neighboring country was only bluffing. Nevertheless, the expected results of the strike had completely back-fired and it lead to Sunrisia suspending all relations with Creperia and issuing an official declaration of war on the country.
Sunrisia has increased the pace of mobilization on the border and informed the separatists that the country has decided to satisfy their request for military aid against the government forces of Creperia. On the day of the declaration of war, the President of Sunrisia has announced that the SDF would move into eastern Creperia on the following day, which lead to the government of Creperia issuing its own formal declaration of war on Sunrisia and beginning its own greatly increased mobilization of the CNDF, in order to make the country’s regular army large and strong enough to both continuing quelling the separatist uprising and repelling the Sunrisian invasion. War was on the horizon.
Belligerents
Creperia
SunrisiaCNLFLumena
