SHAME ON YOU!

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide has reached 43.7 Million, the highest number in 15 years- roughly equaling the entire populations of Colombia or South Korea, or of Scandinavia and Sri Lanka combined. Women and children suffer most and make up 47% of refugees. It is estimated that 15, 500 individual asylum applications were lodged by unaccompanied or separated children throughout 69 countries in 2010 most of them Somali or Afghan. So far, Syria has been the biggest refugee producing country and Somalia the second. In both countries and many other refugee source countries, the interrelated factors of conflict and climate change made survival at home impossible for them. Although each crisis is different, there are useful lessons that can be shared between the two.

Congo Refugees

In 1991 Somalia broke into civil war that has gone for close to a quarter of a century now. Since then a total of 500,000 Somali lives have been lost and another 770,154 Somalis have sought refuge in neighboring nations and western countries across the globe. According to UNHCR refugee statistics as of 31^st October 2015, Kenya hosts a total 329,811 registered Somali refugee population in Daadab camp while Ethiopia’s Dollo Ada camp is home  to 210, 698 registered Somali refugees (a 5% increase since 2012) making them the world's biggest refugee hosting countries . The world’s longest humanitarian crisis evidenced has not only resulted in a swell in the number of refugees in the region but also piracy, where Somali pirates were responsible for 44% of the 289 piracy incidents on the world's seas in the first nine months of 2010 (data from IMB) and also costed the global economy between $5.7 and $6.1 billion in 2012. A Hollywood film based on the container ship Maersk Alabama that tells the story of Captain Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage for five days by the pirates tries to paint the picture. But most important impact felt are the terror attacks in Somalia and across East Africa by the armed militia group Al-Shabaab, with Kenya having lost 300 lives making it the most hit which of course cannot be compared to the many more lives still being lost in Somalia.

Approximately 230, 000 Somalis made the trip to Daadab camp, Kenya In mid- 2010 and early- 2013 arriving in terrible health conditions after days of walking through the desert. Hundreds died on the journey and hundreds more families arrived with malnourished children. Aid agencies were severely overstretched trying to deal with both the sheer numbers arriving and the terrible health condition of people entering the camp. Studies show that countries neighbouring refugee source areas are almost always the primary destination for refugees, as seen in Africa where Kenya hosts refugees from both Somali and South Sudan or in the Middle East where Afghan refugees are in Pakistan. However, the crisis in Syria has unfolded on such an overwhelming scale that neighbouring countries can no longer adequately accommodate them. As a result, close to 7% of Syrian refugees have sought asylum in Europe but, as is becoming increasingly apparent, this percentage is quickly rising. This has resulted to a rapid instalment of razor-wire fences at Europe’s borders and the recent November 13^th attacks in Paris, hasn’t made things any better with campaigns lodged against more intake of refugees and immigrats intensifying within EU States and in the US where governors form 30 states say they will not take in any Syrian refugees. This has created Islamic phobia, Xenophobia as well as setting back the strides made towards the fight for equality and minority groups.

Jordanian Refugee Camp

During this year’s Refugee day the UN Secretary- General Ban Ki- moon acknowledged that theburden of helping the world’s displaced is uneven. A UNHCR report indicates that a full four fifths of the world’s refugees are being hosted by developing countries (80% of the world’s refugee’s) both in absolute terms and in relation to the size of their economies. Pakistan, Iran and Syria have the largest refugee populations at 1.9 million, 1.1 million and 1 million respectively. Pakistan also has the biggest economic impact with 710 refugees per $1 of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya come in second and third in the report with 475 and 247 refugees respectively. On the other hand, South Africa continues to be a major destination for asylum-seekers, as well as migrants and others seeking better economic and social opportunities, hosting nearly one fifth of the 850,000 registered asylum-seekers under the UNHCR. This makes the asylum system be overwhelmed creating a backlog that affects the quality and efficiency of refugee status determination. Without a comprehensive immigration system, migrant workers and others sometimes try to make use of the asylum system to stay legally and gain access to South Africa's services drawing back its economy. By comparison, Germany, the industrialized country with the largest refugee population (594,000 people), has 17 refugees for each dollar of per capita GDP and yet the anti- refugee sentiment are heard loudest in industralized countries. Conor Phillips, Country Director for the International Rescue Committee in Kenya writes that with the exception of Germany and Sweden, EU proposals to accept refugees have so far been verging on irrelevance. EU members are balking at a proposal to accept 160,000 refugees. To highlight the absurdity of this scale, this is 1/8 of the number of Syrians that Lebanon already hosts and Lebanon’s landmass is 1/423 the size of Europe. So, this situation demands an equitable solution. ISIS, Al-Shabaab, Hezbollah or any other armed group are not formed on religious principles and we all know this. They are groups that were formed as a result of poverty, marginalization, inequality and as a way of filling in social gaps left by our governments such as security and social welfare (See, The Side of Terrorism That Doesn’t Make Headlines: Part 1 ).

So instead of creating fear as some Senators in the US congress have expressed or turning down of economic refugees as witnessed in Croatia and Macedonia refusing to resubmit them, or Poland closing down it’s boarders which is against some of the principles that the EU is founded. Or even spreading of Islamic phobia and xenophobia by some political parties in France, Germany, United Kingdom and other parts of Europe and North America. Can we actually focus on the real issues at hand, such as the thousands of lives that are being lost in Syria, Somalia, Iraq and other refugee source nations, the 15.4 million refugees (10.55 million under UNHCR's care and 4.82 million registered with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), the 27.5 million people displaced within their own country by conflict, the nearly 850,000 asylum-seekers or the United Nations human rights investigators report that leveled accusations of genocide and war crimes by the Islamic State in Syria. This reactions in Europe can cause a ripple effect and the 80% of refugees in Africa and other developing nations will be affected immensely.

Kenya and other countries in the region must be applauded for continuing to receive huge refugee populations from Somalia and South Sudan, despite mounting internal pressure to close the camps. Without the political will to keep the camps open, thousands of women and children refugees would not survive. António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees once pointed out that in today's world there are worrying misperceptions about refugee movements and the international protection paradigm. Fears about supposed floods of refugees in industrialized countries are being vastly overblown or mistakenly conflated with issues of migration. Meanwhile, it's poorer countries that are left having to pick up the burden. This act by the EU and North America is highlighting how difficult it is for refugees to exercise the right to seek asylum in practice as is enshrined in international law. SHAME ON YOU!