The forgotten humanitarian crises of 2024, from Sudan to Myanmar

A quarter of Sudan’s population has had to leave the country. There are about 13 million people and, as World Vision reminds us, this is the largest child displacement crisis in the world. A conflict followed by famine has created a tremendous humanitarian crisis, but one that has almost no echo in the media of the global North. “There are few better examples than Sudan,” says Eloisa Molina, Director of Communication at World Vision, when asked about the humanitarian crises that we have forgotten about during 2024.

The Sudan crisis also occurs in “a very complicated context.” “The receiving communities were already very fragile communities,” says Molina, in which there was famine and insecurity. Refugees arrive in countries in extreme situations. This is the case of Ethiopia, where World Vision closed operations for a few months due to extreme insecurity, or Chad, which has welcomed some 700,000 people, of which 90% are women and children, many of them unaccompanied. These are such impressive figures that it makes it even more surprising that they have not entered the information radar.

“Forgotten conflicts tend to be those that, despite their severity and duration, do not receive sufficient media or political attention,” explains Lorena Cobas, head of International Programs at UNICEF Spain. The reasons why this occurs are multiple. Cobas speaks of “geographical remoteness, the lack of political or economic interest or simply the fatigue of the media and the public in the face of prolonged crisis situations.”

“When a conflict goes on for a long time, there may be a tendency to forget it or consider it as a ‘normal’ situation,” says the expert. This reduces the attention it generates and helps it. The paradox is that reality is more connected to long situations than to short ones. «The trend in recent years is for the average duration of conflicts to increase. In fact, we have sad examples of conflicts that last more than a decade, such as Syria, the Central African Republic or Nigeria,” explains Cobas.

Added to all this is that the conflicts in Africa are already more invisible from the start and have fewer opportunities to make the news. «The possibilities are minimal. The African continent in general is forgotten,” says Molina. Why this happens is closely connected to prejudices about Africa. The expert points out that we assume that they are something endemic to the continent. The sexual violence that is being experienced right now in Sudan, he points out, would make news if it happened in other places.

The panorama of forgotten conflicts includes practically all continents. There are refugee crises in Venezuela or Myanmar, where the Rohingya are trapped with nowhere to go, as Molina recalls. The World Vision expert also recovers the case of Yemen, which has not been talked about for a long time but where there is still a war, or Syria, whose crisis goes back a decade.

Mali and Haiti are also experiencing a brutal crisis, the latter a “completely forgotten” conflict. Both countries are seeing how international organizations are reducing their presence (or leaving the area directly), which shows the seriousness of the situation. “It’s a vicious circle,” says Molina, because there are no donations and there is no money to work in those places, but there is no one there telling what they are going through. It’s like an invisibility loop.

This is precisely what happened with Afghanistan, which is now completely forgotten, as Molina indicates, despite the fact that Afghan women continue to need the international community. When the Taliban came to power, the international community left the country and closed aid so as not to collaborate with the new regime. “But we cannot leave Afghanistan,” the expert insists, because the situation remains serious for these women.

Even having a lot of media coverage and having aroused very high interest in public opinion does not protect against the future disappearance of the collective agenda. In fact, Molina now adds Ukraine to the list of the forgotten. “We’ve stopped listening to it,” he explains. When a conflict drags on, “it begins to become a forgotten crisis.” This means that funds are already being cut, although they are still in a situation of extreme need.

UNICEF also talks about Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan on the list of less-publicized conflicts in which they have worked this year, and they add the Gaza Strip and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). “In these areas, boys and girls are suffering the consequences of violence, lack of access to basic services such as health, nutrition, education and protection, as well as the interruption of their daily lives,” says Cobas.

That a conflict becomes forgotten is not trivial. “The crises with the largest financing deficit in 2024 coincide with crises so forgotten that society is not even aware that they are being experienced, such as the cases of Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Uganda and the DRC,” says Cobas. When a crisis does not enter the radar, neither does it enter the distribution of funds.

Not being in the news not only means that ordinary people do not find out but also forgetfulness among the international community, as Molina recalls. Unequal funding, adds Cobas, tests the ability of humanitarian organizations to respond to crises.

UNICEF provides information: only 9% of the financing they receive is flexible. Most are assigned to specific crises and “a handful of emergencies.” Too many children are left out of the accounts, even though they urgently need help.

“We should not be playing to move funds from one crisis to another,” says Molina, who adds that if the objectives were met there would be enough money to address all these ongoing crises.