The humanitarian situation in Burkina Faso has deteriorated rapidly during the last five years, causing the country to head up the list of the world's most neglected countries, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in a report released on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st June, 2023) The humanitarian situation in Burkina Faso has deteriorated rapidly during the last five years, causing the country to head up the list of the world's most neglected countries, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said in a report released on Thursday.
"We must do more to end the suffering in Burkina Faso before despair becomes entrenched and it is added to the growing list of protracted crises. That this crisis is already so deeply neglected shows a failure of the international system to react to newly emerging crises, as it also fails those lost in the shadows for decades. Ultimately, greater investment in diplomatic solutions is needed if we hope to pull crises off this list,," NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland said in a press release.
Burkina Faso is a politically unstable African state, dealing with a political crisis amid a Jihadist insurgency which has already caused more than 2 million people to be internally displaced. As of now, there are 4.9 million people in the country in dire need of humanitarian assistance, however, most of them are unable to receive it due to the blockade of many cities and towns. The NRC said that some people were forced to eat leaves to survive.
"The powerful response to the suffering inflicted by the war in Ukraine demonstrated what the world can deliver for people in need... Those in power need to show the same humanity towards people affected by crises in places such as Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Egeland said.
The humanitarian organization provided statistics, which showed that for every Dollar raised to support Ukrainian refugees, only a quarter was spent to support people in need in places such as Burkina Faso. Moreover, five times more articles were written about the Ukraine displacement crisis than about the top 10 nations on the grim list of neglected countries.
In September 2022, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the then-leader of Burkina Faso's interim government who had come to power through a coup earlier in 2022, was ousted by a group of military officers led by Captain Ibrahim Traore in what became the second military takeover in the country in eight months, local media reported.
Burkina Faso, located in the Sahel region of Africa, has been fighting groups of radical jihadists since 2015.
