Refugees, Migrants and helping (Merged Thread)

[AdamG]

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Human smuggling often conjures up images of shady networks run by organized crime gangs, but new research reveals that independent operators rather than criminal kingpins control routes that bring migrants into Europe from Africa.
More than 600,000 migrants have reached Italy, mostly from Libya, since 2014. More than 20,000 are estimated to have died attempting the crossing in the past four years, making it the deadliest border for migrants in the world.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-a...-idUSKBN1FB003

Initial reports of recent shenanigans in Calais would seem to contradict this assertation.
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...393#post210393

[AdamG]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a major concession to Europe's populist movement this week when she admitted the existence of so-called “no-go zones” in Germany.
Conservatives and populists have long warned of the existence of such zones as the partial consequence of mass Muslim migration from the Middle East and Africa, particularly after Merkel opened Germany’s borders in 2015 as a response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Such areas are said to be dogged by high-levels of crime and are described as "no-go zones" because outsiders, including police and other authorities, are unable to enter.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03...n-germany.html

By The Associated Press
BERLIN — Feb 28, 2018, 11:58 AM ET

In an interview Monday with German broadcaster n-tv, Merkel said she favors a zero tolerance policy on crime and that includes preventing no-go areas, "that's areas where nobody dares to go."
She added: "There are such areas and one has to call them by their name and do something about them."
Asked to name the areas, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Wednesday that "the chancellor's words speak for themselves."

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/201...-go-areas.html

[AdamG]

South Sudan. Syria. Afghanistan. Myanmar. Somalia.

The mention of these nations conjures images of violent conflict — and of humanity on the move.

Many in the affluent West are fearful of a world in which they imagine refugees from these countries are flooding into Europe and the United States at record rates. Those anxieties have driven governments to tighten borders and slash refugee resettlements.

But in reality, the vast majority of the world’s refugees have not gone very far and are largely living in neighboring countries, a fact reasserted in an annual report from the United Nations refugee agency this week.

The report said 68.5 million people worldwide were classified in 2017 as having been forcibly displaced because of conflict and persecution, the highest number since the end of World War II. Among them are 25.4 million refugees — those who have fled to another country to escape war or persecution in their own country and who receive special protections under international law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/w...-refugees.html

[davidbfpo]

A startling article, although years ago the movement of refugees into the Yemen was encountered. So here are two passages by a SME on the Yemen:

more than 160,000 people arrived in Yemen in 2018 alone. Just to be clear this means that more desperate people crossed the Red Sea into Yemen than crossed the Mediterranean heading for Europe. Yemen is in the midst of an internationalised civil war and suffering from the world’s worst humanitarian crisis according to the UN’s Secretary General. There has been no outcry about a ‘migrant invasion’ from any Yemeni Minister of the Interior, whether from the internationally recognised government or the Huthi movement who control the capital Sana’a. Indeed Yemen has received and accepted close to a million Somali refugees since the 1990s, allowing them to work and live in the country, as Yemen is the only country in the Arabian Peninsula to recognise the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Prior to the current war, the country’s authorities have been impressively hospitable to Somali refugees, though not to the thousands of Ethiopians and others who have crossed the Red Sea.

Near the end:

Migrants heading into Yemen are facing extreme hardship conditions in addition to entering a country at war where most of the population are also suffering from famine conditions. What does all this say about living conditions and prospects in their own countries?

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-africa-west-asia/helen-lackner/migrant-crisis-in-europe-look-at-yemen?

[Bill Moore]

https://www.freeburmarangers.org/201...-can-love-win/

Last Stronghold of ISIS: Can Love Win?

Bullets flew by our faces and smacked into the ground around us. Snipers were shooting at us from the tent-and-truck city that was Baghouz, the last physical stronghold of ISIS. Below, in a smoke-and-dust-shrouded valley at a bend in the Euphrates River, was the distillation of the most hard-core living ISIS members.

The battle being fought out in this little corner of the Syrian desert began when, with their families, ISIS had retreated from Mosul, Iraq, pushed out by the Iraqi Army and coalition forces, to Raqqa, Syria, the last capital of the ISIS caliphate. From there the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had taken over the offensive and, with the help of air and artillery support from the coalition, had pushed ISIS out to Deir Ezzor. The fight had continued and the last remnants of ISIS had been steadily pushed back along the east side of the Euphrates to Baghouz on the Iraq/ Syrian border.

The photos of the ISIS truck and tent city is worth viewing, I would have a hard time visualizing if I didn't see them here. The article transitions into a discussion with photos on the refugees. Can love win? I have no idea, but the world has a problem regarding the large number of women and children refugees from ISIS or fleeing ISIS. We're obviously not going to pursue Hitler's solution and maintaining refugee camps indefinitely doesn't seem sustainable. Most countries don't want to help because if they bring back one refugee that commits an act of terrorism, it will politically devastate the politician and political party that agreed to bring them back. The odds of Assad's regime and his Russian, Iranian, and Chinese partners offering a solution is slim. Most likely it will be a problem dropped in the lap of a corrupt and often ineffective UN and various NGO groups. I don't see this ending well.

[davidbfpo]

Bill,

Good catch. First-hand reporting is important and I did wonder watching BBC reporting who was supporting the SDF's humanitarian work.

Now to the key question and citing you in part:

the world as a problem regarding the large number of women and children refugees from ISIS or fleeing ISIS. We're obviously not going to pursue Hitler's solution and maintaining refugee camps indefinitely doesn't seem sustainable. Most countries don't want to help because if they bring back one refugee that commits an act of terrorism it will destroy them politically. The odds of Assad's regime and his Russian, Iranian, and Chinese partners offering a solution is slim.

I read somewhere that Russia is actually taking their nationals back, albeit with conditions. IIRC the men go to jail for ten years and the women can remain with their children till they reach 'X' age, whereupon they too go to jail.

Earlier today catching up with stored articles I listened to this thirty minute podcast with three experts adding their viewpoint. One is Richard Barrett, ex-SIS & UN and Aimeen Dean. Worth listening to IMHO.
Link:https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-foreign-desk/273/