What refugee crisis?

The project I am participating in is called Volunteering for acceptance and diversity. Themes like acceptance and diversity are certainly topics that should be “In” all the time and in a multi-ethnic society such as Macedonia there is work to do around these themes constantly. But the reason why CID is engaged in this type of project right now is the situation of refugees currently in Europe and more particularly in Macedonia. The project's main aim is to raise awareness of “refugee crisis” among Macedonians and increase their tolerance and empathy towards them. This will be done by organizing workshops in schools and different kind of events in the city. But before getting to them, I want to precise what are we talking about when we speak about refugee crisis. What is actually going on and should we even call it a 'crisis'?

Source of image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis

The term refugee crisis is used to describe the situation in Europe in 2015 when a rising number of migrants made the journey to European Union across the Mediterranean sea or through South-East Europe to seek asylum in one of the EU countries. The situation was described as a 'crisis' and got a lot of media attention because the number of asylum applications was more than double compared to previous years, but also because the number of deaths while crossing the Mediterranean rose to record levels.

The reasons to flee are complex and intertwined, but most of the migrants are escaping war and persecutions in counties like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq (according to UNHCR about 80% of the asylum-seekers that arrived in EU in 2015 originate from these three countries). The rest are mainly from South-Asia, West-Africa and Balkan countries fleeing violence, discrimination or poverty and lack of economical opportunities. According to UN's refugee convention, can acquire a refugee status a person who is in fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of particular social group or political opinion in his/her own country. However, in practice it is often difficult to determine who is in fear of persecution and who is not, which makes granting the asylum in some cases rather arbitrary.

The growing number of migrants arriving to EU countries has resulted the Union control its boarders more and more strictly, building walls, fences and putting ID-controls in place. These measures have done it more and more difficult for migrants to cross the boarders which have resulted in live threatening – and paying - attempts to cross the Mediterranean, for example. Ever changing politics and laws have violated migrants basic rights and created absurd situations, such as a number of migrants stuck in the refugee camps in Macedonia waiting for the boarders to open again so they could continue their journey towards Western Europe.

The rising number of asylum-seekers in Europe (especially in Germany and Scandinavia where the majority of migrants are heading) certainly raises questions about how to welcome and “integrate” them all properly; anyhow, should be kept in mind that only a tiny part of refugees in the world are in Europe. According to UN almost 90% of them reside in low- and middle-income countries close to situations of conflict and only 10 countries, most of them being so-called development countries, host over half the world's refugees, as we can see in the image below. This relativizes the situation we are currently facing in Europe and raises the question; should we even call it a 'crisis' or does it only accentuate the idea spread by media of being “flooded” by refugees and hence the willingness to control the boarders even more?

Source of image: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/refugee-crisis-amnesty-international-10-countries-host-more-half-uk-needs-to-do-more-a7344171.html?cmpid=facebook-post

Jannika