A World Engulfed in Crisis: New Year, Same Old Stories!

Debris at the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Source: BBC

As New Year's Eve approached and people began to set up their individual resolutions for the new year, I quietly contemplated on my heartfelt wishes for the year 2016.  Looking back at a rather tumultuous 2015, my humanitarian instincts kicked in immediately. So after a couple of thoughtful minutes, I drafted the following wish: ‘to see that 2016 brings about peace, love and harmony in all corners of the world’. And like everyone does these days,  I gleefully shared the ‘wish’ as my ‘New Year’s Resolution’ with the world via Facebook. If only wishes were true though!

Unfortunately, like most ordinary people, all that I've got is my hopeless ‘wishes’. I have no influence on the state of affairs, neither have I any means of averting the status quo. So like here we go again, the new year 2016 began exactly as how the last one ended. The troubles that engulfed the world over the last year show no sign of ceasing.

Wars in Syria and Yemen are still fierce, sectarian violence in Iraq continue to rise, and terror continue to strike with recent attacks in Turkey and Indonesia. Closer to home, Burundi is slowly descending into civil war, there are also troubles in Mozambique and The Central African Republic. And most recently, another hotel attack in West Africa. This time in the business district of the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou.

The whole world is ramped into a magnitude of crisis it has never seen before and frustratingly, no one seem to know when, if ever this madness is going to end. The international community continue to be toothless and ever so divided in their response to the current global crisis.

Meanwhile terror groups are becoming more sophisticated and unpredictable than ever before. And their atrocities continue to influence the rise of minor hard-line groups from far and wide. The attacks in Jakarta a couple of days ago was a copycat of the Paris attack thankfully with far less casualties. And the recent hotel attack in the Burkina Faso capital was more or less the same as what happened in a hotel in the Malian capital some months ago.

Sadly innocent people continue to pay the price for troubles they have neither initiated nor anticipated, while the main perpetrators together with their sponsors and partners remain largely unscathed. So if you are lucky enough to be living in a peaceful place and enjoying the comforts of live, please take a moment to reflect on the sufferings of fellow human beings elsewhere.

I continue to pray that unfortunate people caught up in crisis all over the world are able to develop the greatest of fortitude to rebuild their lives as a matter of urgency. Despite gradually losing faith in humanity, I am compelled to hope that the madness in the world will all end sooner rather than later.