Most states offer little more than lip-service
Over half a million Syrian refugees have made their way to Europe so far and the wave of migrants does not seem to wane. Since the beginning of the year, Greece has seen some 400,000 refugees arriving at its borders through the sea. In Italy, approximately 130,000 entered the country in similar ways. Hungary, Serbia, and Montenegro have all been pit stops in the journey of hundreds of thousands of Syrians on their way to Western Europe.
“The vast majority of Syrians are arriving in Greece and then making their way to Austria and Germany through the Balkans,” explained Laura Paodan from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “What concerns us is that people are constantly on the move, from one border to another, and their humanitarian needs are not adequately being met,” she told The Media Line. “The European Union must work cooperatively on this issue so that no single country is left to deal with the crisis on its own”.
European leaders, however, failed to reach a consensus on dealing with the crisis so far. Political tensions between EU members have been on the rise, with some countries – including Germany and France – calling on all member states to share the burden of refugees, while others – such as the United Kingdom and Hungary – are refusing to assume such responsibility. Tensions were certainly visible in an emergency meeting recently held in Brussels, when European leaders were unable to come to an agreement around a joint plan of action. Instead, they announced a 1 billion Euro pledge to support Syrian refugees remaining in the Middle East.
But donations might not be enough to improve the situation on the ground. In Lebanon, a country of 4.5 million people, roughly one million refugees have been settled since the fighting in Syria began. The number of asylum applications in the country reached such high levels that the UNHCR office in Beirut decided to stop registering refugees. The number of actual Syrian asylum seekers in the country is not exactly known.
Mona Ayoub, a member of the Lebanese NGO Lebanese for Refugees explains that the political instability in Lebanon, caused by the country’s longest presidential deadlock in history, seriously impedes efforts to help refugees. “People are preoccupied with the political and economic situation and give almost no attention to the refugee crisis,” she told The Media Line. “The refugees are overly dependent on small organizations like ours and are left without much assistance. That is why they want to leave to Europe.”
In neighboring Jordan, the situation is not much better. Roughly 700,000 Syrian refugees have been allowed into the country so far, many of whom were resettled in the Za’atari refugee camp. “We have now entered the fifth year of this (Syrian) crisis,” says Aoife McDonnell, a UNHCR fieldworker in Jordan. “Refugees have spent whatever little savings they might have had, but their condition remains grave. They have no choice but to seek a better future in Europe,” she explained.
Unlike Lebanon and Jordan, wealthier Arab states have done very little to resettle refugees. Despite their developed economies and great wealth, countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait have turned their backs on the refugees. Demographics play a huge role in this decision. In countries including the UAE and Qatar, citizens account for only 15% to 20% of the total resident population. Absorbing refugees, they claim, would completely undermine the authorities’ control over the population and the workforce. Longstanding hatred of Tehran and its ally in Damascus also play a role in this decision, as governments fear a mass flow of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s loyalists into their territories.
In a televised address to the public, a Kuwaiti official by the name of Fahad Al-Shalami recently claimed that “it is not right for us (the Gulf states) to accept people who are so different from us,” referring to the Syrian asylum seekers. He went further to suggest that refugees be directed instead to Turkey and Lebanon where costs of living are lower than in the Gulf.
Within this vacuum of formal governmental action, many individual actors have begun to take action on their own. In London, Muslim Hands – a relief organization – has been sending volunteers to eastern Europe, where workers provide migrants with hot meals, blankets, and clothes. In Syria, volunteers operate a soup kitchen and two elementary schools. “In Europe, we are there to help those arriving in Germany and Austria through train, or those arriving in Serbia and Macedonia by foot,” says Irfan Kahn, a program director at Muslim Hands. “The numbers are huge. In Austria alone we serve around 500 people a day,” he told The Media Line.
In Paris, the Islamic Relief of France has been distributing food and clothes at different centers throughout the city. “Aside from helping those on the streets, we are also operating a hotline for refugees who need immediate assistance,” said Zeinab, a worker at the organization. “We are seeing a high willingness of French people to volunteer and help us.” In fact, the organization has recently announced that it would open a new office in the city of Lyon.
These efforts are certainly helping but much about the future of Europe’s refugee situation remains uncertain. The EU has recently appealed to Turkey to place stricter control over its borders in order to prevent migrants from heading to Europe. This, however, will allow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to extract a very high price tag from the Europeans. So far, no progress has been made on this front.
Kahn from Muslim Hands does not seem optimistic about the near future. “The numbers of refugees will only rise. There are many more displaced people in Syria who will be pushed to flee the country in upcoming months – particularly before the winter begins,” he said. Paodan from the UNHCR agreed. “There are almost 4 million Syrian refugees living in the countries surrounding Syria. The only way to ensure that the numbers don’t get higher is for the Europeans to work together, collaboratively, towards resettling these refugees,” she told The Media Line. “Unfortunately, that is not what we’re seeing,” she concluded.