Not all problems are first-world problems

You may have come across the term 'first-world problems'. It is a way of relativising our difficulties, to say that what might seem terrible to us is probably nothing compared to the problems faced by people living in the third-world.
I've been reminded a lot recently that not all problems are first-world problems. I look at the horror of the refugee crisis (or perhaps more correctly, crises, as the people movements in question have different points of departure, although often similar root causes), and to compound the problem I see the responses of many of us. Reactions to it all vary, from genuine concern, wanting to help but feeling helpless, to a type of xenophobia that would not be alien to ethnic cleansing regimes.
When many of us look at problems like this, we are unable to truly sympathise. Put it in perspective: according to the UN, 700 migrants may have died last month.
When one celebrity dies, the Internet breaks. 700 unknowns, and what? Few headlines. Few photographs. We have allowed so many people to become non-persons, as the Liberation theologians would say.
And that's not entirely our fault. It's largely down to the fact that we are worlds apart. We are so (relatively) safe, well-fed, well-educated, free, comfortable (I could go on) in 'the West' that we cannot imagine or begin to comprehend the experience of so many in the world. We don't know what it is to walk miles every day for water that's probably not safe to drink, but what's the alternative...? We don't know what it is to live in almost constant fear of violence, rape, torture, death. We don't know what it is to spend everything we have to get crammed in to a boat with no toilet, at risk of sinking. we don't know what it is to be penned up in a camp indefinitely, awaiting permission to enter a new county that might represent safety and offer some hope for a new life.
We don't know these things. We can't.
And I don't want to trivialise our own many and varied problems. But most of them are first-world problems. And that can lead us to believe that all problems are first-world problems. That no one is worse off than we are. That all problems can be overcome by pulling oneself together, a good old-fashioned British stiff upper lip, or whatever it may be.
No.
Until we all learn that not all problems are first-world problems, we'll continue to have this problem of a divided world, even as our worlds collide.