In a Feb. 7 column, Don Wycliff asked how many hundreds of Africans must die for the story to go on Page 1. Ever since watching “Nightline’s” “Heart of Darkness” series on ABC-TV a couple weeks ago, I have been asking how many hundreds of thousands of Africans must die for the story to even receive minimal coverage. Ted Koppel’s report told the story of the Congo, where 2.5 million people have died in two-and-a-half years due to the violence, famine and disease brought on by a civil war and the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide eight years ago. The situation is now made worse by the recent volcano.
To put it in perspective, we lost 3,000 people on Sept. 11. In the Congo, almost that many have died each and every day for more than three years. How can the world let this happen?
This is one of Africa’s worst emergencies; yet, it has been almost totally unreported. This is a story that demands our attention.
