The COVID-19 pandemic has not only sapped media attention from global humanitarian crises, but it has also made them worse, NGO CARE International has warned.
As the coronavirus pandemic dominated headlines across the world throughout 2020, major humanitarian crises went unreported, relief agency CARE International said on Tuesday.
In an annual report titled “Suffering in Silence,” the NGO highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic not only diverted attention away from humanitarian crises but has also helped exacerbate them.
CARE called out media organizations for not prioritizing populations from Guatemala to Malawi who are in dire need and how this affects humanitarian response.
CARE analyzed and ranked the 10 humanitarian crises with the lowest number of online news articles mentioning them, starting with the emergency that received the least amount of media attention at number one.
“These 10 crises received 26 times less attention — in terms of online news articles — than the launch of PlayStation 5,” CARE said.
Burundi tops the listÂ
Six African countries made the list, sharing a list of malaise ranging from internal displacement, hunger and malnutrition, and chronic poverty.
Burundi, the fifth-poorest country in the world, topped the list with 2.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. The country has one of the highest rates of chronic malnourishment in the world, the report said. Read more…
