Most neglected displacement crises in Africa: NRC

According to an international assistance agency, nine of the ten most underestimated displacement crises in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. Cameroon tops the yearly index published on Wednesday by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the DRC for the second consecutive year. Meanwhile, Burkina Faso and Niger were the first to join Mali, as they represent growing security and humanitarian crisis in the sense of the multi-layered conflict in the region. Sahel’s share of the top 10 was greater than in previous years.

The list included Burundi 4th, South Sudan, 7th, Nigeria, 8th and the Central African Republic, 9th. Venezuela was the only country in the top ten outside Sub-Saharan Africa, which ranked 5th in a humanitarian crisis driven by a flagrant economy, sanctions and political insecurities.

The NRC has three criteria:

1. A lack of political will on both the part of the state and international actors
2. A lack of attention to the media and
3. A lack of international assistance

Jan Egeland, Secretary-General of the NRC said in an interview with al Jazeera that the countries in the list were victims of a “vicious cycle of indifference” perpetuated by global powers’ disinterest, which sees little strategic benefit in their resolution. “Diplomatic efforts are limited to ending the crisis, which will lead to fewer media, less treatment and fewer donor funds, fewer aid workers,” he said.

Drawing a connection with world-wide demonstrations after the assassination of unarmed Black man George Floyd on May 25 in the United States of America, Egeland questioned whether a broader racial trend would crack the most ignored crisis. “Is there prejudice here maybe in this era when we speak about institutional racism all over the world?” he asked. “How does Africa come down on this list of attention, resource and diplomacy again and again? Life in Africa should be as important as life in Europe, America or Asia.”

In the South of the country, in the violence that followed the launch in 2017 of an armed effort by separatists to create an autonomous homeland for Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, nearly seventy thousand people were internally displaced. Around 52,000 people also fled to neighbouring Nigeria during this time.

Cameroon also had to struggle in 2019 against 280,000 refugees crossing the CAR border. In the meantime, journalists are reportedly illegally detained and punished in the region. In its World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders has ranked Cameroon 134 of 180 countries whereas international journalists are rarely allowed to access conflict areas and therefore lack coverage, the Reporters Without Borders report says.

The lists have also been prominent in countries in the Sahel region. Over the last few years, a “fireball of conflict” has enveloped much of the predominantly semi-arid region involving numerous armed groups, national army military operations, foreign partners and local army units. This year, after not having been in the ranks before, Burkina Faso, which experienced the spread of conflict since 2018, placed third on the NRC list.

According to the report, five times in Burkina Faso last year’s number of displaced people rose by almost 500,000. Hunger has also risen sharply, requiring food support for over 1,2 million people by the end of 2019. Mali, with all of the three meetings approximately half of the humanitarian needs outlined by the UN in 2019, was ranked as sixth and 10th this year respectively.