The world's most neglected displacement crisis is taking place in Africa

Famine is spreading in many African countries.

archival

The Norwegian Refugee Council warned in a report published yesterday that the world is not paying enough attention to the mass displacement crises across the African continent, which are causing famine and protracting conflicts.

"In light of the all-out war in Europe's Ukraine, I fear that the suffering of Africans will be pushed further into the shadows," Council Secretary-General Jan Egeland said in a statement.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, the most neglected displacement crises in the world are, in order, those occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, South Sudan, Chad, Mali, Sudan, Nigeria, Burundi and Ethiopia.

This is the first time that the 10 crises on the annual list of the Norwegian Refugee Council have occurred on the African continent.

Crises are categorized according to the decline in the international political response and media coverage of them, in addition to the amounts of aid pledged to address them.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the most neglected country in the rankings, for the second year in a row, around 27 million people last year suffered from hunger, or a third of the total population, while 5.5 million people became displaced and a million fled the country.

But despite this, no high-level meetings or donor conferences were held to address the hunger crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or to reduce the conflict tearing its east.

The country has received only 44% of the $2 billion requested by the United Nations for humanitarian aid.

In contrast, in March almost all of the funds were collected to secure humanitarian aid to Ukraine in just one day, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council.

"The war in Ukraine demonstrated the huge gap between what can be done when the international community mobilizes to address a crisis, and the daily reality of millions of people suffering silently in these crises across the African continent that the world has chosen to ignore," Egeland said.

In other countries listed by the Norwegian Refugee Council, climatic shocks such as drought and floods have exacerbated food crises, while crises and rampant violence have caused civilians to flee and made it difficult for humanitarian organizations to reach them.

And the lack of press freedom affected several African countries, in the absence of sufficient media coverage of these crises.

The NRC noted that seven of the 10 countries on its list also appeared on previous years' lists, indicating "a vicious cycle of international political neglect, limited media coverage, donor fatigue and ever-growing humanitarian needs."

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news