This week marked the completion of five years of conflict in Syria. It comes as no surprise that this was one of the hotly trending topics in the week. The conflict has caused the largest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time. According to UNHCR, around 3 million people from Syria have fled the country and 6.5 million are internally displaced. However, the increased humanitarian access, ending of hostilities, renewed peace talks and promises of better funding do bring in some hope for the fading country. Hashtags such as #withsyria #IAmSyrian #IAmWithSyria have become extremely popular this week on Instagram.
This form of instability has not only spread to other places but have been in the trending list as well. There was yet another bomb blast in Ankara, Turkey earlier this week. The blast killed more than 34 people and wounded 125 others. While people were condemning the blast and violence on Twitter and other social media using hashtags such as #turkey, #ankara and #ankarablast, another bomb blast took place yesterday in a bus at Peshawar, Pakistan. More than 15 people are said to have died in this blast and several are critically injured. Many have used #PeshawarBlast and #PeshawarMournsAlone to send condolences to the victims’ family.
Moving from the depressing news, to the trending sports headlines, which were personally disappointing for me as India lost its first T20 World Cup match against New Zealand. Since the T20 World Cup has started, Twitteratis are tweeting about every match and showing their support for the teams. Another important match for the people of this region has been the match between Pakistan and Bangladesh that took place yesterday. In soccer, the Champions League match of Bayern-Munich against Juventus made it to the trending list, with the German champions winning the thrilling encounter in extra time.
Ending this week’s trending list was the first race of the ‘Red Bull Air Race World Championship’ for the season in Abu Dhabi. The audience experienced the high speed action of Red Bull Air Race World Championship and shared their experience on twitter using #airrace. The season opener has been quite a successful event.
