Major recent humanitarian disasters (2003-2006)

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Humanitarian Disasters and Crises

Wars, terrorism, armed conflicts, famines, pandemics and natural disasters kill thousands of people every day.  Thousands more lose their homes, their families, and basic needs for survival.  This map illustrates the most catastrophic crisis currently facing the world.  Most of these conflicts are deemed "unimportant" by the popular media.  Media biases in coverage gives the audience a false sense that some areas are intrinsically unimportant and terrorist groups of certain backgrounds are causing all the troubles in the world.  That is incorrect and it leads to a highly distorted understanding of the world's problems.

It's worth noting that this map does not attempt to portrait all the humanitarian crises on Earth.  The HIV AIDS pandemic, for instance, is a major threat to the world.  So are inequalities, discriminations, malnutrition and other types of "slow killers".  Most of these crises are not geographical.  Maps that depict geographic distinction are usually misguided!  Environmental degradation and unfair trade are also causes of humanitarian crises, although these are geographic, they are too complicated to map.  Many disasters that happened earlier (not shown on this map), are still plaguing the world.

Some disasters such as the European heat wave of 2003 are also omitted despite high number of deaths.  These disasters did not result in the reduction of habitability of the region and long-lasting effects on society.