World's top 10 'forgotten crises'

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World's top 10 'forgotten crises'

Thu 10 Mar 2005 7:53:14 GMT

LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - Devastating conflicts in Congo, Uganda and Sudan are the world's three biggest "forgotten emergencies", attracting little media interest despite massive suffering, a Reuters poll of experts showed on Thursday.

Reuters AlertNet, a humanitarian news website run by Reuters Foundation, asked more than 100 relief professionals, media personalities, academics and activists which "forgotten" crises they would urge the media to focus on in 2005.

Following are key facts on each of the 10 emergencies.


KILLING IN CONGO

Democratic Republic of Congo is plagued by violence after a devastating 1998-2003 war which killed nearly 4 million people.

* Violence has exploded in the east since late last year.

* Some 100,000 people have fled their homes in the latest bloodletting in the Ituri region, where tens of thousands of women and children have been raped in recent years.

* Some 3.3 million people now out of reach of aid groups


NIGHTMARE IN UGANDA

Northern Uganda has suffered 18 years of war between the Ugandan military and the brutal Lord's Resistance Army rebels.

* 20,000 children have been abducted by LRA and forced to serve as soldiers and sex slaves.

* Up to 100,000 people killed since conflict began, and 1.6 million have been driven from their homes into squalid camps.


SUDAN'S CIVIL WARS

Sudan has suffered Africa's longest-running civil war in the south and a 2-year-old conflict in Darfur in the west.

* Darfur rebels say Arab militias armed by the government have conducted a campaign of killing and rape against non-Arabs.

* Tens of thousands killed and up to 2 million displaced, four million may soon need life-saving aid.

* In south, a fragile peace deal holding after a 21-year civil war which killed 2 million and uprooted 4 million.


AIDS EPIDEMIC

Some 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, two thirds in sub-Saharan Africa.

* 30 percent of adults in southern Africa infected and 14 million children orphaned by AIDS.

* Explosive growth rates in China and India.


WEST AFRICA IN TURMOIL

Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone struggling for peace after conflicts forced children into war.

* Ivory Coast threatening to implode as pro-government forces break a 2003 ceasefire with rebels.

* Almost 400,000 Liberian refugees still to return home two years after the war.

* Half of Sierra Leone's population of 5 million displaced and 20,000 killed by war that ended in 2002.


COLOMBIANS UPROOTED

Almost 3 million displaced after four decades of conflict.

* Civilians caught up in fighting between armed militias and government troops fuelled by drug wars and breakdown of law.

* 35,000 people killed since start of the 1990s.


CHECHEN CONFLICT

Tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in a decade of conflict in Russia's breakaway republic.

* War displaced 600,000 Chechens, 210,000 yet to return.

* Doctors say 80 percent of children suffer trauma.


STRIFE IN HAITI

Political turmoil and lawlessness is threatening food supplies and health services for hundreds of thousands.

* 55 percent of Haitians living on less than $1 a day

* 42 percent of children under five malnourished


CRISIS IN NEPAL

About 11,000 people killed in nine years of conflict between Maoist rebels and constitutional monarchy.

* 100,000-200,000 people uprooted and cut off from aid.

* Half of children aged under five underweight.


INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Malaria and tuberculosis kill millions each year.

* Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds

* TB kills about 2 million a year worldwide, including people also infected with HIV.

Sources: Reuters reports, U.N. agencies, IFRC, Migration Policy Institute.

(For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44 207 542 9484)

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

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SOURCE - http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L10239409