As the heart-breaking image of a drowned refugee boy who washed up on a beach in Turkey ricocheted around the world on social media, along with equally painful images of children lying suffocated in the backs of trucks crossing borders and being passed over barbed wire fences by desperate parents, Anthony Lake, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) yesterday made a powerful plea for action to protect migrant and refugee children: “It is not enough for the world to be shocked by these images. Shock must be matched by action.”
In a statement issued by UNICEF, Lake advocated that all decisions regarding the child migrant and refugee crisis in Europe be guided by the best interests of the children involved, and that measures be taken to ensure they receive adequate health care, food, emotional support, education, shelter and protection. UNICEF estimates that at least a quarter of the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge in Europe are children, many of whom have fled the conflict in Syria.
Some 2,500 people have died or gone missing this year while attempting the crossing to Europe.
It is, as usual, too little, too late! This has been going on for weeks, with people drowning not only in the Mediterranean, but also in South-East Asia (Indonesia: 4,806 refugees and 7,135 asylum seekers as of March 2015; Thailand: 132,838 refugees including 57,500 unregistered persons originating from Myanmar living in the refugee camps and 8,336 asylum seekers as of July 2015; and Malaysia: 98,207 refugees and 47,352 asylum seekers, as of July 2015; of these countries, Indonesia has the smallest cohort; Hundreds of asylum seekers from many countries other than Myanmar and Bangladesh keep arriving there as they are not deterred by Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders).
Back in Europe, every day we see pictures of asylum seekers and migrants who failed to survive their journey to or through Europe. This can surely leave no one indifferent. There’s far too little aid being given, for example, to reception within the region around the countries of origin of most asylum seekers, as is shown by what we are seeing in Lebanon and Jordan and requests from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for more financial assistance, which have received little or no response. The same applies to UN requests for people to be resettled in Europe who can no longer tolerate life in the camps, such as those who belong to minority groups and may not be safe in a refugee camp. UN’s continuing with requests for resettlement are a voice crying in the wilderness.
No wonder that so many refugees from Syria itself attempt to get into Europe. As we have hermetically sealed all of the EU’s external borders and there is no legal method of entering, would-be migrants are thrown into the hands of people-smugglers. The risks are gigantic. Many fail to survive the journey, while on the other side anxieties in Europe also grow. If people take such risks and their numbers keep increasing, can we as a society cope?
The EU is reacting far too late. Before new ideas can emerge, refugees must die.
The number of “exhausted and desperate” women and children making their way from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq through the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia seeking refuge in Europe has tripled in the past three months. An estimated 3,000 people are transiting through the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia daily. A third of them are women and children – up from 10% in June. Some 12% of the women are pregnant. Since June 2015, more than 52,000 people have been registered at the border’s Reception Centre in Gevgelija after entering from Greece.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported seeing people arriving in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and moving on almost immediately by bus or train up to Serbia and then onwards from there.
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is desperately trying to press Europe into a new system of sharing refugees after France caved in to a proposed new quotas system and Brussels unveiled plans to quadruple the number of people spread across most of the EU. In a major policy speech on Europe’s worst migration emergency, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission (EC), is to table proposals next Wednesday for the mandatory sharing of 160,000 refugees between 25 of the EU’s 28 countries.
The UK, Ireland, and Denmark are exempted from having to take part, but Dublin has already agreed to participate and British Prime Minister David Cameron is under increasing pressure for the UK to pull its weight as the migration crisis escalates with scenes of chaos and misery on Europe’s borders.
Berlin and Paris have sought to maintain a common position for weeks, but the French equivocated on the key issue of binding quotas. On Thursday, French President François Hollande aligned himself with Merkel’s drive for compulsory EU sharing of refugees. Merkel announced from Switzerland that both sides had agreed a common platform and Hollande said there should be a, “permanent and obligatory mechanism,” for receiving refugees in the EU.
Germany, along with the EC, has been pushing hard for a new mandatory system since May when Juncker tabled much more modest proposals for the compulsory sharing of 40,000 bona fide asylum-seekers over two years. A summit of EU leaders in June rejected the quotas, saying they could only be voluntary and eventually agreeing to share only 32,000.
The east European countries and Spain were the main opponents. Four east European PMs are to meet on Friday to consider their positions. Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish PM, reiterated his opposition to quotas in Berlin this week. But the speed of developments on the ground is dictating political responses. Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits as president of the European council, said the EU should agree to share at least 100,000 refugees. In June, he opposed the quotas system. The proposed figures - 100,000 to 160,000 - refer merely to a mandatory quotas system, beyond the much higher numbers of asylum claims that the countries will have to process in any case. Germany alone expects 800,000 this year. In Brussels on Thursday, Hungary’s hardline anti-immigrant prime minister, Viktor Orban, said quotas would only encourage more people to head for Europe from the Middle East and Africa. “Quotas is an invitation for those who want to come,” he said. “The moral human thing is to make clear, please don’t come.”
But the east Europeans are under intense pressure to fall in with the German line and already Poland and Lithuania are making concessions.
There were pitiful scenes in Hungary where migrants thronged Budapest’s main railway station and packed into a train they believed was going to Austria en route to Germany, which has opened its doors unconditionally to refugees from Syria.
The Hungarian leader, widely criticised for his anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, went on the offensive in Brussels. He said Europe was in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees and argued that he was defending European Christianity against a Muslim influx. He painted the refugee emergency as a crisis between Christianity and Islam, with Hungary on the frontline, erecting razor wire fences to keep people out and defend European civilisation against incomers. In Brussels, he invoked Hungary’s partial subjugation by the Ottoman empire in the 17th century as the reason why Hungarians did not want to live alongside Muslims.
All the while, Germany currently greets refugees with help and kindness at Munich central station...and in East-Germany refugee-homes are burning...
In a statement issued by UNICEF, Lake advocated that all decisions regarding the child migrant and refugee crisis in Europe be guided by the best interests of the children involved, and that measures be taken to ensure they receive adequate health care, food, emotional support, education, shelter and protection. UNICEF estimates that at least a quarter of the hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge in Europe are children, many of whom have fled the conflict in Syria.
Some 2,500 people have died or gone missing this year while attempting the crossing to Europe.
It is, as usual, too little, too late! This has been going on for weeks, with people drowning not only in the Mediterranean, but also in South-East Asia (Indonesia: 4,806 refugees and 7,135 asylum seekers as of March 2015; Thailand: 132,838 refugees including 57,500 unregistered persons originating from Myanmar living in the refugee camps and 8,336 asylum seekers as of July 2015; and Malaysia: 98,207 refugees and 47,352 asylum seekers, as of July 2015; of these countries, Indonesia has the smallest cohort; Hundreds of asylum seekers from many countries other than Myanmar and Bangladesh keep arriving there as they are not deterred by Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders).
Back in Europe, every day we see pictures of asylum seekers and migrants who failed to survive their journey to or through Europe. This can surely leave no one indifferent. There’s far too little aid being given, for example, to reception within the region around the countries of origin of most asylum seekers, as is shown by what we are seeing in Lebanon and Jordan and requests from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for more financial assistance, which have received little or no response. The same applies to UN requests for people to be resettled in Europe who can no longer tolerate life in the camps, such as those who belong to minority groups and may not be safe in a refugee camp. UN’s continuing with requests for resettlement are a voice crying in the wilderness.
No wonder that so many refugees from Syria itself attempt to get into Europe. As we have hermetically sealed all of the EU’s external borders and there is no legal method of entering, would-be migrants are thrown into the hands of people-smugglers. The risks are gigantic. Many fail to survive the journey, while on the other side anxieties in Europe also grow. If people take such risks and their numbers keep increasing, can we as a society cope?
The EU is reacting far too late. Before new ideas can emerge, refugees must die.
The number of “exhausted and desperate” women and children making their way from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq through the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia seeking refuge in Europe has tripled in the past three months. An estimated 3,000 people are transiting through the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia daily. A third of them are women and children – up from 10% in June. Some 12% of the women are pregnant. Since June 2015, more than 52,000 people have been registered at the border’s Reception Centre in Gevgelija after entering from Greece.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported seeing people arriving in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and moving on almost immediately by bus or train up to Serbia and then onwards from there.
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is desperately trying to press Europe into a new system of sharing refugees after France caved in to a proposed new quotas system and Brussels unveiled plans to quadruple the number of people spread across most of the EU. In a major policy speech on Europe’s worst migration emergency, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission (EC), is to table proposals next Wednesday for the mandatory sharing of 160,000 refugees between 25 of the EU’s 28 countries.
The UK, Ireland, and Denmark are exempted from having to take part, but Dublin has already agreed to participate and British Prime Minister David Cameron is under increasing pressure for the UK to pull its weight as the migration crisis escalates with scenes of chaos and misery on Europe’s borders.
Berlin and Paris have sought to maintain a common position for weeks, but the French equivocated on the key issue of binding quotas. On Thursday, French President François Hollande aligned himself with Merkel’s drive for compulsory EU sharing of refugees. Merkel announced from Switzerland that both sides had agreed a common platform and Hollande said there should be a, “permanent and obligatory mechanism,” for receiving refugees in the EU.
Germany, along with the EC, has been pushing hard for a new mandatory system since May when Juncker tabled much more modest proposals for the compulsory sharing of 40,000 bona fide asylum-seekers over two years. A summit of EU leaders in June rejected the quotas, saying they could only be voluntary and eventually agreeing to share only 32,000.
The east European countries and Spain were the main opponents. Four east European PMs are to meet on Friday to consider their positions. Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish PM, reiterated his opposition to quotas in Berlin this week. But the speed of developments on the ground is dictating political responses. Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits as president of the European council, said the EU should agree to share at least 100,000 refugees. In June, he opposed the quotas system. The proposed figures - 100,000 to 160,000 - refer merely to a mandatory quotas system, beyond the much higher numbers of asylum claims that the countries will have to process in any case. Germany alone expects 800,000 this year. In Brussels on Thursday, Hungary’s hardline anti-immigrant prime minister, Viktor Orban, said quotas would only encourage more people to head for Europe from the Middle East and Africa. “Quotas is an invitation for those who want to come,” he said. “The moral human thing is to make clear, please don’t come.”
But the east Europeans are under intense pressure to fall in with the German line and already Poland and Lithuania are making concessions.
There were pitiful scenes in Hungary where migrants thronged Budapest’s main railway station and packed into a train they believed was going to Austria en route to Germany, which has opened its doors unconditionally to refugees from Syria.
The Hungarian leader, widely criticised for his anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric, went on the offensive in Brussels. He said Europe was in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees and argued that he was defending European Christianity against a Muslim influx. He painted the refugee emergency as a crisis between Christianity and Islam, with Hungary on the frontline, erecting razor wire fences to keep people out and defend European civilisation against incomers. In Brussels, he invoked Hungary’s partial subjugation by the Ottoman empire in the 17th century as the reason why Hungarians did not want to live alongside Muslims.
All the while, Germany currently greets refugees with help and kindness at Munich central station...and in East-Germany refugee-homes are burning...
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