The world's hidden mega-crisis
Over the summer Yemen quietly surpassed Syria for being the world's largest humanitarian disaster. Sadly, Yemen couldn't hold that title for even 6 months.
In near complete media silence, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen has been overtaken by an even larger catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Over 400,000 children in the volatile Kasai region in Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, are suffering through acute malnutrition and are at risk of dying if immediate intervention is not conducted, UN has warned.
...The poverty-stricken, conflict-torn central African nation, the size of a country almost twice the area of Britain, France, and Germany combined, has been suffering an escalated 18-month-long internal war between the local groups and the government authorities, following the killing of Kamwina Nsapu, a tribal chieftain in August 2016, throwing the country into chaos and spurring mass violence, mass displacement and slumping agricultural output.
Nearly 2.7 million people have been displaced internally by conflict, violence or disasters, as per the latest figures released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, IDMC, in Africa and Norwegian Refugee Council, NRC, earlier this December.
An average of 5,500 people fled their homes every day this year in the Congo. 3.2 million people are “desperately” short of food.
The DRC has two things going against it: 1) near complete global indifference, and 2) a deadly attack on UN peacekeepers.
Heavily armed militants have killed at least 15 peacekeepers and five soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in one of the worst attacks on United Nations personnel in recent memory.
More than 50 peacekeepers were left wounded after fighters from a local Islamist extremist group overran a remote base in the east of the vast central African country after hours of confused fighting late on Thursday.
Many casualties are in a critical condition and the death toll is expected to rise.
If the peacekeepers are getting slaughtered then aid groups can't risk being there either.
Africa already has enough crises in Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria, to name a few.
Comments
Pay close attention, everyone.
This could be us in America in coming years unless we are able to turn things around.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I would say instead
Pay close attention, everyone.
We may soon have troops there.
There are US troops in the Congo
As far as I can find, they were removed. Who knows. Cannot
find links indicating still there. Checked Nick Turse, others...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
It's already like that in some cities here.
And many more aren't far behind.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
It’s bad in some US cities, yes, but not even close
close to what is happening in the DRC.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
One of the California fires was started in a homeless camp
the article stated that the homeless population went up from 24,000 to above 30,000 this year. That is this many homeless people in just one US city. Imagine what the numbers are for the whole country. Many of the homeless are working, but they don't make enough money to pay for rent.
There was the story about how people who work for Amazon are living in broken down RVs and some of them have to work because they lost their homes and pensions during the economic crash. The bailout money that they received wasn't enough to last very long so now they have to re-enter the work place. s/
Im not sure if that fire was the one that made a lot of rich people have to flee their homes, but if it was, what message does this send to us. Between 20-40 people have more money than they can spend in their lifetimes while more than 30,000 of their neighbors are living in tents and cardboard boxes? And now those rich people are going to be able to keep even more of their money because of republicans. This would be a hell of a way for people to rise up against rich people.....
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Erm, yah, aware, but AFAIK there is not a war going on killing
people by the thousands, destroying extremely important habitat in the process.
There’s gun violence here, but nothing near the scale imo. Events could spiral out of control due to climate change quickly, I admit.
Really, why can’t we acknowledge what is going on in Congo? Why?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I can . . .
acknowledge what's going on in the Congo. Proposing a policy to do something positive about it is more difficult. The typical American response when such a problem is acknowledged is to find the group most willing to operate under our guidance; start providing them with weapons; then military advisors . . .
If the US is going to retreat from empire there are going to be all sorts of horrible things going on in the world that the US can't do much about beyond contributing money and the occasional peacekeeping battalion to the UN. When I look at the number of humanitarian disasters (Yemen, Libya) created or made worse by American involvement I think it's a price I'm willing to pay.
On the contrary, US made some
. strides in regulating conflict minerals and ngo's put pressure on Apple and others. Are those still in place? If so for how longm
Having traveled in various African countries a number of times -not the DRC- I just can't support the comparison of what is happening in US being as severe as DRC. I could be wrong.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I may not have been clear.
I agree entirely that what is happening in the DRC is much worse than what is happening in the US so far. What I don't see is a way for the US to improve the situation in a multi sided civil war. We've been down that road too many times.
I'm not confident, but maybe the UN could find a way to save some lives. Perhaps they could provide refugee areas well defended by seriously armed UN troops. Peacekeepers have become targets. I'm talking about a real military force to protect the innocent. Any food and medicine that get to needy people helps. But that is a fluid situation with multiple parties committing atrocities. There are horrible things happening in the world that can be improved only marginally by outside intervention and that could be made much worse by such intervention.
I was gonna say,
Bel Air a pretty good start.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
However, the Hamptons are not notable for brushfires and drought
More’s the pity, some would say.
I just found it rather
poetic that the fire started on skid row and found its way to Bel Air.
Some might say poetic justice. It's criminal that the U.S. has people sleeping in the street when housing is available. Albeit abandoned housing. Is the same here. When I mention abandoned housing here to our ex Mayor (until next election), he just mumbles something about lawyers and absentee slumlords. Meanwhile people shiver.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Years?
You're an optimist.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Okay, months,
weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. Someday we may find ourselves in this situation.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Guess what country might be the world's most resource rich
nation? Congo.
Guess what country is backing the "internal" conflict in Congo?
Since 1996
The answer to that question is "Rwanda".
Who's backing Kagame?
The United States. It's like Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Proxy resource wars.
And Uganda? And maybe others funding weapons etc?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Would love to see a source on that and catch up.
We are going back camping again in neighboring Zambia next year and wondering if we will see refuguees.
Found an old Atlantic article that asked whether our cell phones were contributing.... but it is old and mentions possible legislation. Another this week was about a publicly traded copper mining company, so yeah, would not be surprised if US military was there.
Also found this:
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
The Congos are into they're 50th decade.
Why do human beings decide it's a good thing to slaughter each other?
I don't know.
Must be either the Colonist Aholes in EU or Trump or the Russians.
Notice how EU pretends they are not responsible?
Yet, why can't these humans figure out how to live together.
It is a puzzlement.
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
Africa and the US military
Bill Fletcher has some insights:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I... (text or video)
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”