World focus missing low-profile conflicts

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- A top U.N. official said in New York the international community must pay closer attention to lower-profile conflicts around the world.

Antonio Guterres, U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said Thursday unreported lower-profile conflicts around the world are increasingly neglected because they don't receive a spotlight for threatening global security, the United Nations reported.

Guterres said, for example, that while attention should be paid to the rebel violence that is escalating into a humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's North Kivu province, ongoing smaller conflicts in other parts of the country are devastating local populations.

"The DR Congo is not just North Kivu," Guterres said in a statement.

"Every six months, the number of people who die unnecessarily in the country as a result of armed conflict and material deprivation is equivalent to the number of people killed by the 2004 Asian tsunami. Conflict, climate change and extreme deprivation will interrelate, strengthening each other as a cause of displacement."