News: The Forgotten Wars...

Most people in the UK are unaware of major conflict zones around the world, according to a new survey by the British Red Cross.

The survey was carried out to discover how much the British public knows about armed conflicts ahead of the Red Cross’ Civilians and Conflict Month, which launched this week.

Respondents were able to name Afghanistan and Iraq as war zones, most probably because that's where British military are stations.

However less than one per cent identified the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an estimated 5.4 million people have died as a result of the country’s long-running conflict.

Less than one per cent of respondents were able to identify countries such as Sudan, Somalia, and Central African Republic.

Almost one in five (18 per cent) could not name five countries experiencing conflict. (Full)

I would add that in the case of Chad and DRC, the media is partially to blame as the crisis in those countries hardly ever gets the spotlights. Which is not the case for Somalia, and certainly not for Sudan.

If you look at all the campaigning which has been done around Sudan and Darfur, one would then ask, what it really takes to ensure the forgotten wars are brought back into the spotlight? Reuters Alertnet runs a survey on this topic.

Via The Other World News