Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2004

February 5, 2005 11:12 AM

The Top 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories of 2004 as compiled by Doctors Without Borders - wars, disease, famine, and repression that has gone largely unnoticed in mainstream media [via PBS' NewsHour - real audio streaming link].
posted by tpl1212 (12 comments total)

Background on Africa's World War in Congo, in which three and a half million people have died.
posted by shawnj at 11:37 AM on February 5, 2005

What about the top 10 most overreported humanitarian stories?
posted by stbalbach at 12:29 PM on February 5, 2005

Maybe we could divert some of the money being used to fund our holy war/oil war to help these people.
posted by gagglezoomer at 1:04 PM on February 5, 2005

Good link. MSF is one of the most valuable relief organizations in the world today. I'd highly recommend visiting other parts of their webpage.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 1:35 PM on February 5, 2005

Thanks for this post. Here's a good article I found last year about Uganda.
posted by carmen at 2:03 PM on February 5, 2005

Superb post. Thank you, tpl1212.
posted by mr.marx at 2:53 PM on February 5, 2005

shawnj
It's not really a world war, though, is it?
posted by Sangermaine at 11:08 PM on February 5, 2005

Good links, thanks.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 3:00 AM on February 6, 2005

It's really dissappointing that this post has generated such little interest (as indicated by the number of comments.) There is so much relevancy here, but we rely so much on the media to provide the parameters of our opinions that when stories like this get presented (and we don't possess those parameters,) the discussion just dies.

Anyways, I currently live in Uganda, and myself and a few friends co-founded a small charity to raise money for the "night commuter centers" in Gulu (the first story on the MSF page.) As part of that, I visited Gulu last june, you can read more about the situation and my visit (scroll down to 'Contrasts') on my blog.

(It's okay to self link when its relevant, right? i'm not sure... I'm kinda new.)
posted by Kololo at 1:30 AM on February 7, 2005

If awful situations seem hopeless, people just sigh and turn the page.

If there is something people can do about them, you've got to do more than just say these things happened, you've got to make it clear that they didn't have to happen, and that we could stop some of them by doing X.

Post instructions on where and how and why to donate, if what it needs is money. Post instructions on how to vote, if what it needs is political action.
posted by pracowity at 1:52 AM on February 7, 2005

Sangermaine: That's why it's referred to as "Africa's World War" since there were a lot of African countries that became involved in it.

For that matter, the two world wars that we generally consider to be so can't be called that either.
posted by shawnj at 8:43 AM on February 7, 2005

For that matter, the two world wars that we generally consider to be so can't be called that either.

? WW2 anyway featured combatants from all the continents, and theaters of war all over the planet, if primarily in Europe and the pacific rim.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:51 AM on February 7, 2005