Ukraine is serious; But there is worse

Don’t we say that “too much” sometimes is like “not enough”? You have to know how to find a balance and, obviously, we did not succeed in this, this year, in the description of the crises which affect the world.

Our focus on Ukraine in 2022 is easily explained. An obvious villain – the Russian aggressor – and an equally undeniable good – the Ukrainian victim. The conflict is taking place in Europe; we all have a weakness for the Old Continent.

Russia, heir to the USSR, quickly regained its status as an enemy and, thanks to the barely rusty reflexes of the Cold War, Western Europeans and North Americans united their financial and military efforts to come to the aid Ukrainians.

At the same time, the other tragedies, those which continue to afflict the Middle East and Africa, appear to us so much less easy to understand and practically impossible to resolve. We say to ourselves that in Ukraine, it is a question of defeating the armies of Vladimir Putin and we can move on to something else.

A WAR WITH MULTIPLE CONSEQUENCES

We weren’t entirely wrong to pay so much attention to the Russian-initiated war in Ukraine. Ukrainians are suffering in their flesh from this aggression, but millions of people, far from the conflict, are also affected.

This is what the International Rescue Committee, a non-governmental humanitarian aid agency, insists on in its latest report on emergencies to watch for in 2023.

The IRC recalls that the interruption of Ukrainian grain exports, coupled with the sanctions imposed by the West on Russian exports, has led to a spike in food prices. Six of the worst-hit countries imported two-thirds of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia, with Somalia peaking at 90%.

Somalia, moreover, is at the top of the countries that worry the officials of the IRC, an NGO founded at the request of Albert Einstein in 1933. Two hundred thousand Somalis currently live with such food insecurity that people, each day, are starving. The devastating drought that is gripping the country might triple the number of hungry people in the first six months of 2023.

EMERGENCY THIS, EMERGENCY THERE

The IRC placed ten countries on its list of emergencies to watch, all from Africa and the Middle East, except for Haiti and Ukraine, in tenth place. To the conflicts that stretch in duration and increase in size, the NGO adds accelerated climate change as a driver of curse.

She also regrets that the countries in the worst position have very little responsibility for these upheavals in the climate.

Nevertheless, we must remain hopeful. Yemen, for example, which is unfortunately once once more ravaged by war, still experienced a six-month truce, the longest period of calm since 2014.

Bangladesh, thanks to the help of the World Bank, was able to build solid shelters for fourteen million people living on its coasts. The violent cyclone Good luckwhich swept in October, will have thus made only 24 victims rather than the thousands that one might have feared.

The challenges, we will encounter them everywhere in 2023 and not only in Ukraine. Not bad to remember.