The refugee crises you don't hear about

EU and African leaders are meeting in Malta this week to discuss the ongoing refugee crisis as thousands of people from the Middle East and North Africa continue to die on Europe's doorstep.

The plight of the millions who have fled civil war in Syria and Isis and the Taliban in Iraq and Afghanistan is well documented, even if these desperate people don't end up finding sanctuary elsewhere.

But there is less understanding of the conflicts, discrimination, long-standing poverty and environmental issues that drive people from other countries around the world to risk everything by leaving home.

Just some of the other festering problems world leaders are being called on to address at the EU-African summit and the UN COP21 climate conference in Paris later this month are:

1. Eritrea

Tiny Eritrea in the horn of Africa has no elections, court system or free press. Most people are forced into some kind of subsistence labour or military service and dissenters are sent to prison.

It has been described as the "North Korea of Africa".

2. Yemen

The Yemeni Civil War is one of the most underreported stories of our times. The low level longstanding Houthi insurgency against the government increased in severity during the fallout of the 2011 Arab Spring, culminating in the seizure of the government compound in Sanaa in January 2015.

1.5 million people have been internally displaced by the fighting and people are so desperate they're even fleeing to unstable Somalia.

3. The Lake Chad Basin

The Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria is now affecting the countries which border the area united by Lake Chad, which includes Chad itself as well as Niger and Cameroon.

Drought and deepening poverty are also contributing to increasing tensions in the basin. Chad declared a state of emergency this week as the government struggles to repel Boko Haram.

4. Australian detention centres in Papua New Guinea, Christmas Island, Cocos and Nauru

In Australia there is mandatory detention for anyone without a valid visa, and as of 2013 anyone arriving by boat will not be settled in the country even if they are found to be "valid" refugees, but rather in Papua New Guinea.

There are increasing reports of violence and rape at the country's outsourced Pacific island detention centres.

5. Central America

Drug cartel violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala has driven thousands north to Mexico, which is fighting internal wars against narco gangs of its own.

The US has spent millions of dollars on funding Mexican programmes to find and deport non-citizens, effectively stopping them from reaching the US border.

6. The Rohingya of Burma

Around 1.3 million ethnically Muslim Rohingyas live in Burma, and they are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, denied many basic rights by the military junta that has ruled the country for decades.

What's more, those who have tried to leave in the last few years often fall victim to traffickers, captured by slaving syndicates and trapped into working on fishing boats.

7. Burundi

More than 210,000 people have fled post-election violence since Burundi's sitting president Pierre Nkurunziza changed the constitution to give himself a third term. The country's fragile peace is under threat as tensions between the army and political groups simmer under the surface.

8. Forced removal of Roma people

Roma or Romani people have been discriminated against for centuries and the tradition continues in Europe today. A camp of mostly Roma on the outskirts of Malmo in Sweden was raided last month. More than 200 people's homes were destroyed and the local authorities only have plans to rehouse 40 people as winter sets in.

9. Sudan and South Sudan

The government is still carrying out atrocities against its people in Darfur and Kordofan as it tries to fight separatist groups. The newly-created nation of South Sudan has also been plagued by conflict since its birth in 2011.

10. Pakistan

More than 20,000 people have been killed in recent years mainly in the north of the country by fighting between insurgency groups such as the Taliban and government and American forces.

11. Somalia

Islamist group Al-Shabaab has inflicted misery on civilian Somalis for decades, effectively turning the country into a failed state.

For a while it seemed as though the hundreds of thousands of people who fled to Kenya and other neighbouring countries might be able to return home, but there has been an escalation in violence in the last two years or so, and the worst drought in the region in 60 years has also forced many more to leave.

12. Libya

Libya is a transit destination for many refugees trying to reach the shores of Europe, but the power vacuum left by the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 has led to spiralling violence between government forces, tribal militias and jihadist groups which has displaced 430,000 people.

13... and climate change

Climate change is likely to outpace even war as the biggest driver of global migration in years to come. The world's first climate change asylum seekers, a family from Kiribati, were rejected by New Zealand and deported home in September.

As extreme weather, flooding and sea level rise affect low-land areas, up to 650 million people in the Pacific Islands, Vietnam, India and Bangladesh may be affected.

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