Photos: A free clinic for donkeys, vital to Ethiopia's economy
The humble donkey is a cornerstone of the national economy, and the Donkey Sanctuary – a free clinic run by a British charity – is crucial in Addis Ababa. Set near Merkato, the city's sprawling open-air market, it provides care for animals that are often indispensable to their owners' livelihoods.
Several dozen donkeys stand in enclosures at the clinic – some agitatedly kicking their legs, others hungrily tucking into their food. Caregivers and veterinarians move from animal to animal, treating a range of ailments including injuries, colic and eye conditions.
Among them is Guluma Bayi, 38, who had walked more than an hour and a half, leading his two donkeys to the clinic.
'It has been three weeks since my donkeys became sick,' said Guluma. 'One has a leg problem and the other has a stomach issue.'
Like many, Guluma depends on his donkeys for his livelihood, using them to transport jerrycans of water for sale in his community.
'After they became ill, I couldn't buy bread for my children,' he said. 'I begged a guy to bring me here.'
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Ethiopia was home to some nine million donkeys as of 2018. In this East African nation of approximately 130 million people, donkeys play a chief economic role, ploughing fields and transporting goods – offering a low-cost alternative to vehicles at a time when the price of fuel has soared.
Another regular visitor, Chane Baye, earns his living by using his two donkeys to transport sacks of grain across the city for clients. His income can range from 200 to 400 birr per day (approximately $1.50 to $3) – a decent sum in a country where a third of the population lives below the World Bank's poverty line of $2.15 a day.
The 61-year-old seeks out the clinic every three months or so – 'whenever they start limping or have a stomach problem', he said.
'Before this clinic, we used traditional ways to treat them,' he explained, describing how nails were once crudely removed from the animals' legs with a knife. He is grateful that his donkeys now have access to professional care for their injuries and infections.
At the clinic, vet Derege Tsegay demonstrates the less glamorous side of his work by performing a routine but unpleasant procedure – reaching deep into a distressed donkey's rectum, clad in a rubber glove.
Derege removes a large mass of stool that had accumulated in the animal's digestive tract.
'It happens often,' he remarked.
A lack of adequate food in the city frequently leads donkeys to ingest whatever they find – including plastic bags – which can wreak havoc on their digestive health.
Though the work is often challenging, Derege takes pride in what he does.
'I am proud of what I am doing … because I am trying to solve the problem of so many owners that rely on their donkeys,' he said with a smile.
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Al Jazeera
06-08-2025
- Al Jazeera
MSF ‘overwhelmed' in Ethiopia's southwest following aid cuts
Rising cases of extreme infant hunger and malaria are overwhelming humanitarian facilities in southwestern Ethiopia as aid cuts force other nutrition and disease prevention programmes to shutter, Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym, MSF) has warned. MSF said on Wednesday it had seen a 55-percent increase compared with last year in child admissions to its feeding centre in the Kule refugee camp in Ethiopia's Gambella region, with many of the infants coming from camps nearby. Funding cuts have meant the closure of nutrition services in four of the region's seven refugee camps, MSF said, 'leaving around 80,000 children under the age of five at risk of life-threatening malnutrition'. Ethiopia, Africa's second-most populous nation with about 130 million people, is grappling with armed clashes in two of its largest regions. Southwestern Gambella borders South Sudan, itself facing a dramatic uptick in violence and funding cuts to international programmes that form the country's healthcare backbone. The region currently shelters just under 400,000 refugees across seven camps, many of them South Sudanese. 80,000 children under five are at risk of life-threatening malnutrition as services are suspended in four refugee camps in Gambella, Ethiopia, following significant aid cuts. Without urgent support, this crisis will continue to — MSF International (@MSF) August 6, 2025 Patient visits to the Kule camp have risen by almost 60 percent compared with 2024. 'MSF is overwhelmed by the increased patient load, and we fear this number will likely keep rising in the coming months,' said Armand Dirks, MSF's project coordinator in Gambella. Nyauahial Puoch travelled roughly eight kilometres (five miles) from another refugee camp to seek treatment for her malnourished 17-month-old daughter. 'Since last year, there has been a big decline. Some of the items we used to get are no longer provided at all,' the NGO quoted her as saying. While they are given food once a month, Puoch said, 'it always runs out before the month ends'. Funding cuts have also had an impact on disease prevention, notably malaria programmes, with MSF predicting a steep increase in the May-to-October rainy season. The NGO said in July it had seen an approximately 125-percent rise in the number of malaria patients – almost 24,000 – compared with the previous month, with half of these patients coming from neighbouring refugee camps. 'This poses a serious threat to already vulnerable refugees who face heightened exposure to malaria-infected mosquitoes due to overcrowded living conditions and limited sanitation,' said Birhanu Sahile, MSF's deputy medical coordinator.
Al Jazeera
21-06-2025
- Al Jazeera
The woman raising 98 children with disabilities in Uganda
At her 'Home of Hope', Edith Lukabwe cares for children abandoned by their families. Home of Hope founder and director Edith Lukabwe feeds a child inside her orphanage's therapy room [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Home of Hope founder and director Edith Lukabwe feeds a child inside her orphanage's therapy room [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Jinja District, Uganda - On a muddy, uneven and unnamed road on the outskirts of the eastern city of Jinja, children laugh and play in a compound surrounded by green hills and sugarcane plantations. A child hurtles his wheelchair down the driveway at breakneck speed towards a heavy gate manned by a friendly security guard. On the worn concrete veranda, a young boy with hydrocephalus - a condition in which fluid enlarges the skull - laughs loudly as he plays checkers with two friends. The cheerful atmosphere belies the difficult backgrounds of the 98 children - aged six months to 18 years - who live on the compound. All were abandoned. Most were babies when their parents left them. Some were left at the compound gate, others at hospital after they were born while one three-year-old boy was rescued from his home days after his parents disappeared. Today, more than six million people in Uganda, a country of nearly 50 million, live with a disability. Many consider disability to be a burden due to a long-held cultural belief that it is a curse. Families with disabilities are often shunned by their communities and, in the absence of support or knowledge of better practices, often resort to restraint, tethering and forced seclusion. In some cases, children are abandoned due to social stigma and financial hardship. About 31 percent of households with a disability live in poverty. Just 1 percent of the country's health budget goes towards helping these families. 'A meagre amount,' says Andrew Mubangizi, assistant commissioner for disability. In rural areas in particular, a lack of staffing and resources at government-run clinics means caregivers often have to travel long distances to access support. However, for the past two decades, small, donor-funded organisations and charities dotted around the country have tried to fill the void left by the health system to care and advocate for those living with disabilities. One of the people leading the movement is Edith Lukabwe, who is raising the 98 children at her Home of Hope orphanage. She hopes that educating small pockets of her local community to raise awareness will balloon into a more accepting society. '[People] can then teach their communities. … There shouldn't be a cultural stigma,' she says. Mildred, two, who has Down syndrome, uses a walking frame at the Home of Hope. Every Tuesday is therapy day at the home. About 25 parents bring their children to see a physiotherapist and occupational therapist, Eddie Opio, seen here speaking with Mildred's mother, Ida [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Mildred, two, who has Down syndrome, uses a walking frame at the Home of Hope. Every Tuesday is therapy day at the home. About 25 parents bring their children to see a physiotherapist and occupational therapist, Eddie Opio, seen here speaking with Mildred's mother, Ida [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] On a humid, late afternoon in November, Edith sits giggling loudly and bantering with two older members of her team during a lull between heavy rain showers. They watch as younger staff members dodge puddles and sweat through a daily aerobics routine in the muddy courtyard. As energetic pop music blares across the compound made up of three single- and double-storey buildings, seven-year-old Diego, who has cerebral palsy, heads up a concrete ramp towards a therapy room. His wrists twisted, he crawls forward slowly until Edith spots him. 'Diego, my boy!' the 49-year-old calls out with a wide grin. She runs over to him, her loose dress billowing as she scoops him up and swings him quickly onto her hip. He gives her a high five, and the two laugh before turning their attention to the workout. The warmth and affection between Edith and her staff and the children at the orphanage make the place feel like it belongs to a very large family. Edith's own journey as a disability rights figure in Uganda began in 2000 with the birth of her first child, Derrick, in Jinja. When Derrick was two days old, he turned yellow and cried excessively. So Edith and her husband, Richard, took him to a hospital where he was misdiagnosed with malaria. For two weeks, their son suffered convulsions, and upon seeing another doctor, he was found to have complications with his spinal cord after contracting meningitis. Witch doctors like Robert Apedu in Soroti District provide 77 percent of health services in rural areas. They offer a more convenient alternative to health facilities and medicines found in cities [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] 'When he made three months, this is when I realised that my son was not growing as a normal child. He had poor head control. He had a curved spinal cord. He was very floppy,' Edith recalls while sitting in her office. Its walls are adorned with certificates of appreciation and merit, and a portrait of President Yoweri Museveni hangs above the door. As she looks out a window onto a playground full of children, Edith recalls how she and Richard struggled to get information about their son's condition and were ostracised by their friends and family who were fearful of them and Derrick. 'We started coming into the hospital, in and out. Home, hospital, home, hospital. And with his situation, especially with convulsions, people were like, 'He has got epilepsy. He has demons.' And this is where I was rejected by the community,' she says. 'They were like, 'She gave birth to a demon-possessed child.'' In the village of Omalera, Robert rubs a paste of plant matter and water onto the skin of Noah Oyara, 17, who has no use of his legs and also lives with hydrocephalus. Due to negative connotations surrounding his profession, Robert refers to himself as a 'traditional healer' or 'herbalist' [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Historically and until today, education about disabilities has not been promoted through government-run schools or local clinics, leading many Ugandans to resort to traditional healing. Without a diagnosis and feeling helpless, Edith succumbed to social pressure and took her son to traditional healers. 'I tried to take him to different witch doctors. They were cutting him all over the body, smearing him with their herbs, washing him with blood of the chicken, the blood of the goat. They could take us in at night to shower us with the blood of the chicken, but still, Derrick didn't change,' she recalls. 'It was just worsening.' But then an elderly couple at her church encouraged her to return to the hospital and supported her family. So Edith returned with Derrick to the hospital. After 12 months, he was diagnosed with permanent disability. The prolonged lack of treatment for meningitis had led to severe brain damage and cerebral palsy, leaving him nonverbal and unable to walk or feed himself for the rest of his life. In Wanyange parish, Margret Nakimbugwe embraces her two-year-old son Ali Nsimba at her roadside stall. Ali has cerebral palsy and receives therapy at the Home of Hope while social workers there provide her with counselling. The home also gave her interest-free capital to start a small business [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] In Wanyange parish, Margret Nakimbugwe embraces her two-year-old son Ali Nsimba at her roadside stall. Ali has cerebral palsy and receives therapy at the Home of Hope while social workers there provide her with counselling. The home also gave her interest-free capital to start a small business [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Hoping to help with Derrick's lack of mobility, Edith started attending a physical therapy session with him at the local government hospital. There she met other mothers and grandmothers who brought their children with different disabilities. She was shocked to see how malnourished some of them were. Edith took note of the techniques the therapists and the nurses were using. The nurses taught her how to better care for Derrick. They showed her how to mash his food so he could swallow more easily, for example. Meanwhile, Edith befriended the other women who attended and with her newfound knowledge began offering to help them with small tasks, like cutting their children's nails. 'Mama, can I help to cut off these nails?' she recalls asking them, explaining that because they were long the child could injure themself. Grateful, the women started to bring her food whenever they came to the hospital. 'So we became such friends. So I started visiting them once in a week,' Edith recounts. Although she suspected neglect was behind some of the children's poor states, she was shocked when she visited the homes and saw how some were being locked inside - a consequence of stigma, a lack of support and education, and poverty. 'It broke my heart that every time I was going to visit the grandma, I found this child locked in the house. The child has been there for the whole day,' she explains. 'That's the moment I knew I wanted to help.' In Omalera, 17-year-old David Emwodu sits with his hands bound by a rope tied to the bunk bed he shares with his brother. David lives with an undiagnosed intellectual disability. He can become violent, especially towards his eldest brother, and when this occurs, his family tethers him to the bed [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Edith began an informal support group at the hospital where she and others attending the therapy sessions would pool together money, usually about 1,000 Ugandan shillings ($0.30), and give it to someone among them who needed it most. Meanwhile, the therapists working with Derrick and the other children moved them to a local charity. After seeing Edith's work, the charity offered her a job visiting the parents of children with disabilities to provide support and therapy. But the work was unpaid, and she and Richard now had two more children alongside a three-year-old Derrick to raise on just one salary. Edith soon quit. About that time, she had a car accident that left her with a spinal cord fracture and an open head injury. 'I ended up in the hospital, in Jinja hospital, for a year,' she says. Richard was left to care for the children, which left less time for work. This period was very difficult on her family and marriage, Edith says, but she resolved to push through. 'After six months at home, I was able to begin putting my assistive devices down, and I started walking,' she recalls. 'I say to God that if you heal me, I'll take care of the disabled children.' As she recovered, she would spend the day on the porch of her family's rented home, often seated in a wooden chair, to look after Derrick. Wanting to help the families she had assisted before her accident, Edith asked her cousin to bring the children to her home. Within a month, she was caring for six children, including her son. Soon after, two babies were left on her doorstep. She believes they were abandoned due to the taboo surrounding disability and left with her as a result of gossip within the community. 'They were like … 'She's taking care of those children with demons. I think it's the demons which also caused her accident due to her son,'' Edith says with sadness in her voice. Edith says her first-born son, Derrick, is the reason she is fighting to help children with disabilities [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Edith says her first-born son, Derrick, is the reason she is fighting to help children with disabilities [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Edith worked with the local village elder to try to locate the abandoned babies' parents, but their efforts were unsuccessful. She was then obliged to formalise their adoption. She did this by registering her work as a caregiver at a community-based organisation and orphanage in 2007. The Home of Hope started on the porch of her house, and then in 2013 with the help of international donors, she was able to move her growing organisation - and her family - to the large open compound they are at today. Edith recalls this as a happy time for her and Derrick. She would take him for walks in his wheelchair outside the compound and remembers how he'd smile brightly at passers-by. Ever since he was born, she had shared a bed with Derrick to watch over him and never stayed away from him for too long because he would cry out for her whenever she left the room. Derrick was 'a blessing for the family', she says. In 2014, as Edith was now raising four of her own children and a growing number of others at the orphanage, Derrick died of cardiac arrest after a short illness. He was 14. Derrick's death devastated Edith. 'This is my own womb, my own blood, my own child. I can't even know how to express that. I still have pain. I'm just learning to live with that pain,' she says softly. The home suffered. 'It perished,' she says. But over time, she started to think about how to channel her grief into her work and expand it in Derrick's memory. Edith says she thinks of him during happy times, but also when things are difficult. 'In tough times, I feel I wish he was by my side,' she admits. 'Every time I was with him, we could laugh. He could bring that smile. Whenever I was stressed, I could look at him, and he gives me that bright, light smile,' she recalls. 'The love was a really happy memory.' It is because of Derrick that Edith says she is doing what she does today. 'I don't want this [home] to exist when I'm alive and then when I get out of the world, it dies. I know children with disability will continue to exist,' she explains. Joseph, 10, sits alone outside the therapy room at the Home of Hope [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Edith set up a hospital to both honour her son and allow the organisation to be more self-sufficient. Home of Hope is 99 percent funded by international donors, and Edith was able to raise the money to build a fully staffed hospital for the children who live on the compound. It's also open to the local community. Richard, who oversees all the maintenance, looks after a chicken hatchery that provides the kitchen with eggs and meat. The organisation hosts therapy and social work students from Europe as volunteers to supplement the work of the full-time staff. Two of Edith and Richard's sons also work there: Denis, 24, is the operations director, and Francis, 20, is a nurse. Most recently, they built an assisted living home in nearby Buwenge for those aged 18 and older who are too old to legally live in the compound. At the main orphanage, the once bright paint on the walls is faded and shows the strains of time, but it continues to provide warm, comfortable bedrooms with animal decals and bunk beds, three meals a day and children's activities. Yet its work stretches beyond the high brick wall surrounding it. Dr Sam Ecengu offers advice to parents with children living with disabilities at a community outreach programme run by the nonprofit Cherish Ikoku Uganda. The programme is an important component in the battle against cultural stigma [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Dr Sam Ecengu offers advice to parents with children living with disabilities at a community outreach programme run by the nonprofit Cherish Ikoku Uganda. The programme is an important component in the battle against cultural stigma [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] As the staff disperse, panting yet smiling after their workout, a thin, neatly dressed man approaches Edith. He greets the children as he crosses the yard. Peter Osire is Edith's right-hand man. In 2013, impressed by his attention to detail and work ethic when approving the charity's regulatory paperwork in his role at the local council, Edith persuaded him to join her team. Affable yet firm, the 41-year-old is the Home of Hope's programme coordinator and runs its community outreach programmes. Covering a 30km (19-mile) radius surrounding Jinja, Peter engages local 'village mobilisers' to identify children with disabilities living - and often hidden - in villages. Their families are invited to monthly sessions held by a team of social workers, therapists and nurses who not only provide medicine and therapy if needed but also education about disabilities. The hope is they will spread what they learn deeper into their rural, isolated communities. Recently, Peter met Olivia, a young mother who, after being abandoned by her family and left on her own to care for her son with Down's syndrome, attempted suicide. He also met Moses, a 16-year-old boy with epilepsy whose lack of mobility has left him permanently fixed in a foetal position. Home of Hope has therapists and counsellors who can help them both. Students stare at Moses, 16, as his mother, Evelyn Mbwali, explains his story to a health worker at a local outreach clinic. Moses was brought to the clinic because his mother was worried about his lack of mobility [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] It was at an outreach session where 41-year-old Ruth* approached Peter for help. Ruth is seven months pregnant and raising two girls with cerebral palsy - Jesca*, 13, and Mariam*, 12 - as a single mother. They live in a village that is almost exclusively home to sugarcane workers. The girls' father abandoned them after Mariam was born, and due to the stigma attached to disabilities, she has received little support from their community. Like most children with a disability, the girls do not attend school. They help their mother with chores, such as doing the laundry and tending to their small corn crop. When the girls were young, Ruth would take them to canefields for the day, keeping one eye on her daughters as she cut and packed sugarcane. When they were older, she felt comfortable enough to leave them on their own at their small mud house on the village outskirts. But in mid-2024, Ruth says, their 37-year-old neighbour lured Jesca into the fields and raped her. Ruth didn't suspect anything was wrong until one day when Jesca started refusing to get out of bed. At the local clinic, Jesca was tested for malaria. The test came back negative. But her pregnancy test was positive. Ruth says she doesn't know how many times her child was raped. But she learned that her daughter was receiving small amounts of money, 100 shillings ($0.03), regularly, and when pressed on its source, Jesca named their neighbour. Then Jesca took Ruth to the place where she had been assaulted. Jesca is comforted by her mother, Ruth, in the bedroom they share with Jesca's sister, Mariam. The girls have cerebral palsy. Jesca is currently seven months pregnant after being raped [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Jesca is comforted by her mother, Ruth, in the bedroom they share with Jesca's sister, Mariam. The girls have cerebral palsy. Jesca is currently seven months pregnant after being raped [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] When Ruth confronted the neighbour and his family, threatening to go to the police, he admitted his guilt. After a village elder's mediation, Ruth was assured the family would receive ongoing support once Jesca's baby was born and a bar of soap and 2kg (4.4lb) of sugar every month until the birth. Feeling she had no other option, Ruth agreed. But as Jesca's belly grew, her rapist fled the county. The soap and sugar were never seen. 'This is not justice for my girl. I want him imprisoned,' a frustrated Ruth says, adding that as she has pushed for justice, her neighbours have become hostile. 'There is a lot of hatred towards me now.' With the desperate realisation that soon there would be another two mouths to feed, with Jesca also seven months pregnant, Ruth felt she had to act. But the police weren't likely to help, she believed, without 'facilitation', or bribes, something she couldn't afford. So she sought help from the Home of Hope. When it comes to such cases, however, Edith and Peter are limited in what they can do. Peter has guided Ruth in dealing with the local authorities, but has found the process frustrating. Jesca was raped by a neighbour in these fields surrounding her home [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] 'The family [of the accused] knows where the man is, though they claim they don't know. But then the police have not yet done any follow-up because they just keep on telling these people, 'Make sure you look for him and bring him,'' he explains after a meeting with Ruth to discuss the status of the case. Police respond to requests to speed up the investigation by saying, 'We don't have facilitation. Will you facilitate?' Peter adds. Meanwhile, the police have told Ruth that if she continues to push for charges, she could be arrested on grounds of neglect. But discrimination is the main hurdle in achieving justice for Jesca, Peter explains. One in four adults living with an intellectual disability in Uganda has been sexually abused, often with no formal or legal recourse for the victim. Peter has reached out to a legal aid organisation in the hope that its involvement will push the police into action. Edith is frustrated. The case should have gone straight to the police. But because the child has a disability, no one is taking the case seriously, she says. 'The LC [the local court or village elder] contrived with the family, with the family of the man, and they didn't help because this child is what? Disabled. They see the child as useless,' she says, her voice rising in anger. Simon Okurut carries his son Paul Oribo, who lives with cerebral palsy, to a makeshift ambulance driven by Fred Alimet from the charity Cherish Ikoku Uganda. Alimet says Uganda's poor roads and lack of a transport system is a major factor why families are unable to access proper healthcare [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Simon Okurut carries his son Paul Oribo, who lives with cerebral palsy, to a makeshift ambulance driven by Fred Alimet from the charity Cherish Ikoku Uganda. Alimet says Uganda's poor roads and lack of a transport system is a major factor why families are unable to access proper healthcare [Christopher Hopkins/Al Jazeera] Despite the lack of government funding and assistance and systemic and cultural barriers, Edith and Peter are buoyed by small changes. Weekly therapy sessions are now attended by more than 20 people who bring their children with disabilities. Attendance at monthly outreach sessions held in three subdistricts has also grown. Peter says the first session in 2009 attracted about 20 people. Now 80 to 100 people attend. Both the therapy and outreach sessions are crucial in that they provide primary caregivers with a network to talk to others about their children and experiences. 'In the 20 years that I've run Home of Hope, I've seen change,' Edith says. 'I've seen that parents have started accepting the children [as] they are now. They are no longer getting ashamed of exposing their children to the community. They bring them out, they take them for therapy, they bring them for medication. We are no longer having children who are abandoned on our gates.' Sitting on the floor of the therapy room, surrounded by immobile children, Edith cradles a toddler with cerebral palsy. She pours porridge into his mouth from a large cup, gently wiping any spills with care, just as she did with Derrick 25 years ago. 'I want them to live happily,' she says. 'So long as they are living in this world and I'm also living, I want them to be recognised that they are also human beings.' *Names have been changed to protect identities
Al Jazeera
03-06-2025
- Al Jazeera
Why are humanitarian crises in African countries so ignored?
African countries have again topped the list of the world's most ignored crises, with nearly all of the worst-funded humanitarian challenges located in the continent in 2024, according to a new study out this week. Released on Tuesday, the report by the nonprofit Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) lists Cameroon, Mozambique and a host of other African nations as some of the most burdened by violence and displacement, but also the most invisible to donors. The news comes as the United States, formerly the world's biggest aid provider, massively cut development funding this year. Aid agencies received only half of what they needed in 2024, and experts say further shrinking aid will likely make 2025 even more bleak for people in need. Eight African emergencies were previously ranked as the most ignored in 2023 as well. Millions of people who have been displaced and face food insecurity or lack shelter are receiving little aid because of 'donor fatigue', poor media coverage and little-to-no political resolution, according to the NRC's 2024 Most Neglected Crises report. The report defined countries in crisis as those that host or have more than 200,000 displaced people, and which have been declared to be in severe crisis emergencies. Of 34 countries analysed, the most 'invisible' according to the NRC report were: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Mali, Uganda, Iran, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Honduras and Somalia. Aside from funding, there was little progress on effective conflict resolution, disaster prevention and diplomatic engagement in all the affected countries, the report added. In general, aid funding dropped overall in 2024, the NRC noted. 'The shortfall between what was required to meet humanitarian needs in 2024 and what was delivered was a staggering $25 billion, meaning over half of all needs went unmet,' the report stated. 'Donor fatigue' and growing waves of nationalistic policies within traditional donor countries are causing the richest countries to reduce foreign aid funding, experts say. A lack of proximity to emergencies, analysts add, also affects attention. 'Too many crises across the continent remain in the shadows – ignored because they don't make headlines, or because they are not seen as of immediate strategic interest to international partners,' Christelle Hure, NRC's head of advocacy in West and Central Africa, told Al Jazeera. 'Crises that knock on Europe's door – as happened in 2015 [with mass immigration] – tend to receive the greatest media attention, while those far away remain not only out of sight but also out of mind,' Hure said. The West-Central African nation tops the list of the world's most neglected crises in 2024. In the English-speaking northeast and northwest regions of Cameroon, a protracted civil war which began in 2017 is continuing. That year, thousands took to the streets to protest against the appointment of French-speaking judges, and in general, alleged discrimination from the Francophone-majority government. Heavy crackdowns to suppress the protests soon saw armed groups springing up, declaring independence. The government in Yaounde, in turn, declared war. Both the rebels and government forces have targeted civilians. Hundreds have died, and thousands more are displaced internally or have fled to neighbouring Nigeria. 'The violence there is largely ignored because it's not a direct threat to the central government,' Beverly Ochieng, a security analyst with United Kingdom-based intelligence firm Control Risks, told Al Jazeera, adding that little has been done to negotiate peace. 'There was a feeling initially that some of the secessionist leaders were trying to lobby Donald Trump to support their cause but they've just not received any attention.' Meanwhile, in the northern Lake Chad Basin region, also connected to Nigeria, violence by the armed group, Boko Haram, has continued for years, displacing thousands. A US-backed joint force of the Lake Chad Basin countries has largely collapsed since the military governments in Niger and Chad pulled out, leaving Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin. Washington's shrinking of security presence and operations in African nations is likely to further destabilise the arrangement. Cameroon itself hosts refugees fleeing Boko Haram in Nigeria, as well as those from the Central African Republic fleeing fighting between two political groups. Together, some 1.1 million people are internally displaced, and 500,000 are refugees. Despite this, Cameroon's displacement crisis was mentioned in fewer than 30,000 articles in English, Spanish, French and Arabic in 2024, compared with the Ukraine war, which was mentioned in 451,000 articles, according to the NRC. Only 45 percent, or $168m of the $371m required, was raised to fund aid in the various crises, according to the United Nations. The government, too, is under fire for seeming indifference: President Paul Biya, 82, and in power since 1982, is often criticised for spending most of his time away in Switzerland. The aftershocks of the Tigray war in the country's north (2020-2022) merged with new intercommunal fighting in the Oromia and Amhara regions, creating a potent mix of crises which has seen 10 million people pushed out of their homes nationwide, the NRC report noted. The Fano armed group, which claims to represent the interests of the Amhara people, one of Ethiopia's significant ethnic groups, is fighting the federal army, which tried to disarm it after they both fought Tigrayan forces during the war. The Oromo Liberation Group, meanwhile, says it is seeking independence for the Oromo people, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group. Both groups have been met with force by the government in Addis Ababa, which has launched air strikes. Dozens of civilians have died in the fighting. In addition, drought and flooding have compounded food shortages. In the southern Gofa zone, heavy rains caused two landslides on July 21 that killed more than 200 people, the worst such landslides in the country. The Southern African country appears on the list for the first time this year. Political upheaval following hotly contested October elections saw protesters who supported the independent opposition candidate, Venancio Mondlane, shot dead by Mozambican state security. About 400 people died in the violence, according to local media tallies. Separately, ongoing attacks by an armed group with affiliations to ISIL (ISIS-Mozambique) in northern, oil-rich Cabo Delgado flared up in 2024. Violence has continued there since 2022 and has seen thousands displaced, while also disrupting a billion-dollar oil and gas investment project. Government forces working with regional troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Rwandan soldiers were able to push the fighters back in 2023, allowing many displaced people to return. However, because the fighters are deeply embedded in local communities, the conflict has turned volatile again very quickly. Prone to cyclones due to its location in the Indian Ocean, Mozambique was hit by Cyclone Chido, which also devastated the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, in December. The storm made landfall in the northern region of Mozambique, which is facing armed conflict. Some 120 people were killed, and about 155,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Since 2015, more than two million people have been displaced in Burkina Faso because of the activities of violent armed groups like the Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), which wants to create a caliphate. Several of those groups now control close to half of the country, despite efforts by the military-led government to push them back with support from Russian forces. The rebels have held civilians suspected of supporting government forces under siege for more than two years, blocking entries and exits to now nearly 40 towns and cities. Massacres of villagers, however, have been blamed on both armed groups and government forces who are accused of attacking civilians perceived to be aiding the fighters. Neighbouring Mali is ranked fourth on the neglected crises list and faces a similar situation. Analyst Ochieng attributes shrinking aid to the three military-led countries of the West African Sahel, including Niger, partly to the hostile stances towards Western powers of the leaders there. All three have cut off Western allies which previously provided both military and humanitarian aid, particularly France. Their hostility has extended to humanitarian groups, sometimes perceived as being tied to Western nations, further limiting aid. 'These military leaders are focused on economic development and they don't even want to be seen as not being able to provide for their people … that makes it very difficult for any donors to approach them to provide help, or even for aid agencies to assess what the actual needs are,' Ochieng said. US President Donald Trump's sweeping aid cuts after he took office in January, and his decision to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency that distributes it, have prompted fears that humanitarian emergencies could worsen in 2025. As the world's biggest aid donor, the US distributed about $70bn in foreign aid yearly, particularly for healthcare. In 2024, the most aid went to Ethiopia, Jordan, DRC, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria. With those funds either reduced or halted altogether, aid workers worry that emergencies on the African continent could worsen. Other major donors are also making cuts, observers warn. In February, the UK cut foreign aid by 0.2 percent, while the Netherlands will slash 2.4 billion euros ($2.72bn) in aid from 2027. France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden have all announced reductions to their aid budgets since. Hule of the NRC said the African Union (AU) must take the lead in resolving the continent's multiple crises through political negotiations. The bloc's Peace and Security Council, tasked with anticipating and mitigating conflict, has previously been criticised as being too slow to act. 'What is urgently needed today isn't just more funding – it's clear political commitment, not only from donors but crucially from the African Union and its member states,' Hule said. Countries, she added, also need to reduce administrative and regulatory barriers that hamper aid workers. 'Easing these constraints, in close collaboration with authorities and the African Union, would greatly enhance the efficiency and impact of our collective response,' she added.
