They receive the least attention: the world has forgotten these humanitarian crises

Bonn - Every day we read, hear or see reports in the media about humanitarian crises that move and concern us. Be it the Russian attack on Ukraine, the situation in Gaza or in Yemen. But there are a whole host of other crises around the world that go unnoticed. A report by the non-governmental organization CARE is now drawing attention to them.

The suffering of people in Africa often goes unnoticed by the general public. In Zimbabwe, the food situation is uncertain, even for 61-year-old Esther.
The suffering of people in Africa often goes unnoticed by the general public. In Zimbabwe, the food situation is uncertain, even for 61-year-old Esther.  © John Hewat/CARE

To gain an overview, CARE worked with the media monitoring service Meltwater to analyze five million online articles in the period from January 1 to September 30, 2023. In addition to German, they also included Arabic, English, French and Spanish.

The result: the ten humanitarian crises that received the least media attention all took place in Africa.

The sad leader is Angola. Droughts, floods and famine have left 7.3 million people in need of humanitarian aid. In addition, the country is still suffering from the consequences of a civil war and remains one of the most heavily mined in the world.

However, the world press has shown little interest in this. There were just 1049 online articles on the subject. In comparison: 273,421 articleswere publishedabout the iPhone 15 and 163,368about the Taylor Swift world tourin the same period.

1371 vs. 215,084 articles: Crises "lose" against celebrity news

Some of the people live in the poorest conditions.
Some of the people live in the poorest conditions.  © Rakietou Hassane Mossi/CARE

Things look little better when you look at the reports on Zambia. Drought and flooding are causing problems for the 20 million inhabitants here. 1.35 million of them have too little to eat, 60 percent live on the equivalent of less than 1.90 euros a day.

Terrible, but just 1371 online articles reported on this in the first three quarters of 2023 - 215,084 about Prince Harry's book "Spare".

In third place in the sad ranking is Burundi. Just 3,989 articles told the global community that 5.6 million children in the country suffer from chronic malnutrition. In addition, high inflation drove up the prices of basic foodstuffs.

You can read the other rankings and the entire CARE report here: care.de/schwerpunkte/nothilfe/vergessene-krisen/.