Underreported
Significant disasters from the last 14 days — GDACS Orange/Red alerts and M5.5+ earthquakes — and armed-conflict events from the last two months, each beside the measured news-coverage response of the affected country (coverage share after the event vs the country's own two-week baseline). The attention gap, quantified: severity is not a judgment, and neither is silence — but both are measurable.
Armed conflict
Conflicts from the last two months with an estimated 20 or more deaths, grouped by warring parties (UCDP codes each incident separately; UCDP preliminary “candidate” data, revised in later releases), beside the same measured coverage response. Research has long shown this is where the attention gap runs deepest: US networks have covered under 5% of African disasters versus over 15% of European ones, and it takes roughly 45× the deaths in Africa to draw equal coverage (Eisensee & Strömberg, QJE 2007).
| Event | Country | Deaths (best est.) | Coverage response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Government of Somalia vs Al-Shabaabstate-based · 4 events · Jun 9 – Jun 30 · Lower Shabelle region, Middle Shabelle region | Somalia | 279 | +243% |
| Government of Ethiopia vs Fanostate-based · 6 events · Jun 17 – Jun 24 · Amhara state | Ethiopia | 252 | +12% · muted |
| Government of Burkina Faso vs JNIMstate-based · 4 events · Jun 10 – Jun 30 · Kuilsé region, Yaadga region, Sirba region | Burkina Faso | 2244 civilian | -6% · muted |
| Government of Russia vs Government of Ukrainestate-based · 17 events · Jun 6 – Jun 29 · Zaporizhzhya oblast, Donetsk oblast, Kharkiv oblast +4 more | Ukraine | 12921 civilian | -1% · muted |
| Government of Sudan vs SFAstate-based · 13 events · Jun 6 – Jun 19 · North Kordofan state, South Kordofan state, North Darfur state | Sudan | 11974 civilian | +29% |
| Government of Niger vs ISstate-based · 2 events · Jun 17 · Tillabéri region | Niger | 109 | +20% · muted |
| Government of Pakistan vs BRASstate-based · 11 events · Jun 8 – Jun 28 · Balochistan province | Pakistan | 108 | +31% |
| Government of Israel vs Hezbollahstate-based · 13 events · Jun 6 – Jun 21 · South Lebanon province, Nabatiye province, Beqaa province | Lebanon | 10115 civilian | +50% |
| Government of Niger vs JNIMstate-based · 3 events · Jun 18 – Jun 30 · Niamey region, Tillabéri region | Niger | 1012 civilian | +6% · muted |
| Government of Pakistan vs TTPstate-based · 9 events · Jun 11 – Jun 29 · Khyber Pakhtunkwa province, Sindh province | Pakistan | 87 | +32% |
| Unidentified group vs Civiliansone-sided · 7 events · Jun 9 – Jun 26 · Niger state, Zamfara state, Kebbi state +2 more | Nigeria | 8686 civilian | -1% · muted |
| Unidentified group vs Unidentified groupstate-based · 8 events · Jun 8 – Jun 20 · Ogun state, Kaduna state, Zamfara state +2 more | Nigeria | 5614 civilian | +1% · muted |
| Unidentified group vs Unidentified groupnon-state · 4 events · Jun 13 – Jun 29 · Niger state, Plateau state | Nigeria | 55 | -2% · muted |
| Government of Pakistan vs TTPstate-based · 2 events · Jun 9 – Jun 28 | Afghanistan | 4949 civilian | +24% · muted |
| Government of Nigeria vs ISstate-based · 4 events · Jun 6 – Jun 20 · Borno state | Nigeria | 47 | +12% · muted |
| Unidentified group vs Unidentified groupstate-based · 4 events · Jun 7 – Jun 16 · Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkwa province, Punjab province | Pakistan | 35 | +12% · muted |
| AFC vs VDPnon-state · Jun 11 · Sud Kivu province | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 31 | -35% · muted |
| Government of Central African Republic vs ASPstate-based · Jun 30 · Vakaga prefecture | Central African Republic | 283 civilian | -6% · muted |
| IS vs Civiliansone-sided · 2 events · Jun 19 – Jun 20 · Borno state | Nigeria | 2626 civilian | -9% · muted |
| Government of Israel vs Hamasstate-based · 2 events · Jun 7 – Jun 30 · Gaza Strip | Israel | 231 civilian | -18% · muted |
| Unidentified group vs Unidentified groupnon-state · 2 events · Jun 17 – Jun 18 · Tillabéri region | Niger | 21 | +31% |
| Unidentified group vs Unidentified groupnon-state · Jun 22 · Sool region | Somalia | 20 | -65% · muted |
Local voices
Recent reporting from Global Voices, whose contributors translate local and citizen media that international wires rarely carry — a qualitative counterpart to the gap measured above.
- The invisible crisis that strips people of citizenship
Malka OlderAug 19
- Who are the M23 Rebels in eastern DRC?
Democratic Republic of the CongoRwandaLauraAug 18
- From DMs to data: How an anonymous platform is turning students’ stories into fuel for change in North Macedonia
North MacedoniaCentral Eastern EuropeAug 17
- Who was here first? The two meanings of ‘Indigenous’ in Europe
AlbaniaBosnia and HerzegovinaBulgariaCentral Eastern EuropeAug 17
- Escalation of sexual violence raises alarm in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the CongoLauraAug 16
- ‘The Sigh of the Earth’: Fragments from communities overlooked after Venezuela’s earthquakes
VenezuelaSaúl ZerpaAug 16
- A mosque built by a transgender person raises questions about faith and belonging in Pakistan
PakistanSyeda Noor FatimaAug 15
- The Herat arrests are a defining moment of Taliban repression in Afghanistan
AfghanistanFatima YousofiAug 14
- Chadian environmental activist Hindou Oumarou: ‘AI governance must respect Indigenous peoples’
ChadDialogue EarthAug 14
- Conflict-displaced women facing growing risk of sexual violence in eastern DRC
Democratic Republic of the CongoLauraAug 13
- ‘Silence has become both more dangerous and more complicit’: An interview with Lebanese-British artist, Amale Khlat
LebanonUnited KingdomOmid MemarianAug 13
- What it is like to run a business as a woman in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
AfghanistanEurasiaAug 12
Headlines by Global Voices, licensed CC BY 3.0.
Disaster events from GDACS (UN/EC) and USGS. Conflict events and fatality estimates from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (GED); candidate data is preliminary and revised in later releases, and “best estimate” is UCDP's most conservative documented count. Coverage response = mean coverage share of the affected country from the event day onward vs its trailing 14-day baseline — see methodology. A “muted” marker means a severe event whose coverage response stayed under +25%. Derived data CC BY 4.0 (“Geotone / GDELT”).
One honest limit: we measure coverage, so we can expose stories the world's press underweights — but where no outlet reported at all, our numbers are silent too. Mortality surveys routinely find tolls in under-covered conflicts far above anything that ever reached the news.