Finland suddenly a top choice for Iraqi asylum-seekers

Finland, a country of 5.5 million people on the edge of the Arctic with vast expanses of forests and reindeer roaming the wilds, has suddenly and unexpectedly emerged as a top destination for Iraqis who are crossing the Mediterranean to Europe along with hundreds of thousands of others fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

Some 11,900 Iraqis have applied for asylum in Finland this year, accounting for 70 percent of all claims. More than 8,600 arrived in September alone.

Finnish officials say the sudden increase seems to be partly driven by online rumors about quick handling of asylum applications, generous benefits and an abundance of jobs. “We don’t know where these ideas came from,” said Hanna Kautto, a spokeswoman for the Finnish Immigration Service.

In reality, Finland’s reception for asylum-seekers differs little from other EU countries, and its economy has entered its fourth year of recession.

[AP]

The psychological toll of the Syrian refugee crisis

The nearly 12 million Syrians — half of them children — who have fled their homes to protect themselves and their families have seen unspeakable violence, both during the war in Syria and during their escapes.

These experiences are understandably traumatic, but their long-term effect may be even greater than we realized. A new study has found that half of the Syrian refugees who have fled to Germany are experiencing psychological distress and mental illness resulting from trauma, Germany’s chamber of psychotherapists announced this week.

The researchers evaluated refugees seeking asylum in Germany, and found that more than 70 percent had witnessed violence and that about 50 percent were victims of violence themselves.

The findings also revealed that 40 percent of adult refugees experienced nightmares, and 50 percent had vivid flashbacks reliving a traumatic event.

Forty percent of the children who were evaluated had witnessed violence, and 26 percent had watched their families being attacked, the new research found. 1 in 5 suffers from a psychological disorder as a result of trauma.

Dietrich Munz, president of the German chamber of psychotherapists, estimatedthat while 3,000 to 4,000 psychotherapy sessions are offered in German refugee camps each year, the demand may be 20 times higher.

[Huffington Post]

Ethnic make-up of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe

Syrians account for 50% of the refugees arriving in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean, but several other nationalities are turning up in large numbers. According to UN figures, 75% of the total refugees hail from countries in the midst of armed conflict or humanitarian crises. So apart from Syria, where are they coming from, why did they leave, and how are they reaching Europe?

Afghans – 13% – According to the Afghan government, 80% of the country is not safe, as extremist groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State’s local affiliate are waging insurgencies in many provinces. Most are walking over the border into Iran, a trek that takes up to two days. Then they drive to Iran’s border with Turkey, where they cross again on foot, in another laborious hike. Once in Turkey, Afghans take a day’s bus journey to the same Aegean ports many Syrians are using to reach Greece.

Eritreans – 8% – Eritrea is Africa’s version of North Korea, a country with no constitution, court system, elections or free press. Outside of the metropolitan elite, most Eritreans must submit to a form of forced labor – lifelong military conscripts who have no choice about where they live or work. Any dissenters are sent to prison without any judicial recourse. Most walk over the border into Ethiopia or Sudan, a dangerous first step that sees some shot by border guards, begin a brutal journey through the Sahara to Libya, [where] they are held in smugglers’ compounds and usually tortured until their families send the $2,000 required for payment before the refugees are permitted to board a ramshackle boat to Italy from one of the country’s western ports.

Nigerians – 4% – Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group, continues to fight an insurgency in northern Nigeria, killing and kidnapping locals and forcing many to flee. Other Nigerians are escaping from poverty. Most head over the northern border to Niger and join the smuggling trail to Libya, experiencing similar horrors to Eritreans crossing the desert from Sudan.

Somalians – 3% – Islamist insurgents, including al-Shabaab, are fighting an insurgency, with civilians caught in the middle. One popular route is through Kenya, Uganda and south Sudan. Then people head north to Sudan, where most follow the same route and adversities as the Eritreans. But a smattering of refugees now follow the Balkan route – into Kenya, fly to Iran, then cross the Iranian-Turkish border, before heading by boat to Greek islands.

Pakistanis – 3% – More than 1.2 million Pakistanis have been displaced by insurgencies in north-west Pakistan.  Like Afghans, Pakistanis walk into Iran, then take a bus to the border with Turkey, where they cross again on foot. They then pick up the Balkan route that begins on the Turkish coast.

Iraqis – 3% – Vast swaths of Iraq, including its second city, Mosul, have recently been conquered by Isis, worsening a nightmare that began with the west’s invasion of the country in 2003. Iraq borders Turkey, so most reach Turkey by land and then take boats to Greek islands.

Sudanese – 2% – Civil wars in the country’s Darfur and Kordofan regions continue to displace civilians. Darfur is still unsafe – a Human Rights Watch report recently alleged that the Sudanese government had carried out many killings and mass-rapes of civilians in dozens of towns. Sudanese refugees are smuggled to Libya, and then across the Mediterranean to Italy. Like Eritreans and Somalians, many die of thirst in the desert and fall victim to extortion and torture by smugglers in Libya.

[The Guardian – Statistical source: the UN refugee agency]

 

The White House’s slow approach to the Syrian refugee exodus

The throngs of desperate migrants fleeing Syria and the images of children washing up on European shores have spurred the Obama administration into action, officials said.

The Obama administration is preparing to announce a plan to admit more refugees — from 70,000 this year to 85,000 next year and 100,000 in fiscal 2017 — but at this point the numbers being proposed are too small to relieve the crisis streaming out of Syria.

The problem with the plan, no matter how quickly adopted, is how long it will take to have any effect. Migrants applying for refugee asylum in the United States now will not have their applications considered until at least 2017 because of a long backlog. And once an application begins to be considered, the asylum seekers can face a further 18 to 24 months before they are granted or denied asylum.

Human rights experts said that the United Nations has already referred over 16,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S. for vetting, and the 10,000 increase would come almost exclusively from the backlog of Syrians who have already applied, not the people who are fleeing now.

The U.S. has accepted only 1,500 Syrian refugees since the war began.

[Bloomberg]

Most displaced in history

Worldwide, 59.5 million people are on the move as refugees or displaced people within their home countries.

That population would be enough to make them citizens of the world’s 24th biggest country!

Humanity has never seen such displacement. Ever.

“Wars, conflict and persecution have forced more people than at any other time since records began to flee their homes and seek refuge and safety elsewhere,” the United Nations said in June.

At least 15 wars and conflicts are to blame — in Africa, the Mideast and Asia.

[CNN]

Syrian refugees: Which countries welcome them, which ones don’t

The expanding Syrian refugee crisis — the worst refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide more than 20 years ago — highlights the differences among countries that welcome desperate migrants and those that don’t. Here’s a country-by-country look:

Germany: As Germany faces the largest share of Syrian requests for asylum in Europe, Chancellor Angela Merkel called for quotas to be set for each country to take a share of displaced people, including from Syria. There could be 800,000 applications for asylum in Germany this year, and the country could take 500,000 refugees annually for several years, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said.

Sweden: Sweden joins Germany in demonstrating a high standard of responsibility in the refugee crisis, and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven joined Merkel at a press conference this week in urging a Europe-wide solution for hosting refugees. In the 1990s, Sweden accepted 84,000 refugees from the Balkans.

France: French President François Hollande has said France is ready to take on more responsibility and host 24,000 refugees over the next two years.

United Kingdom: The United Kingdom will likely see an upswing in asylum requests now that it has said it will take up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years. But Britain will focus on resettling vulnerable refugees from camps in countries bordering Syria, not those who have already entered Europe.The refugees will receive a five-year humanitarian protection visa. Britain has been the second largest provider of humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees within the Middle East region.

Denmark: Denmark has received a relatively large number of Syrian asylum requests but has sought to discourage the arrival of more migrants. The country earlier had paid for ads in Arabic in four Lebanese newspapers to get the word out about its new, tightened restrictions — such as reducing social benefits — to try to prevent refugees from getting into the Scandinavian nation.

Hungary: Many Syrian refugees are reluctant to register an asylum application in Hungary. Having traveled north through the Balkans, those arriving on the country’s border with Serbia have had police greet them, and they’ve been forced to wait, sometimes for days, in holding areas and transit camps, where conditions are said to be poor. Hungary’s right-wing government, which has been trying to stop the flood of migrants, has erected a barbed wire fence along its more than 160-kilometer (100-mile) border with Serbia to prevent them from crossing there.

United States: Only about 1,500 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the United States since the start of the conflict in 2011, the vast majority of them this fiscal year. In the face of growing questions about such small numbers, President Barack Obama ordered his administration to “scale up” the number of Syrian refugees — at least 10,000 in the next fiscal year, a White House spokesman said Thursday.

Canada: More than 2,370 Syrian refugees have resettled in Canada since January 2014, and the government promised in January to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over a three-year period.

Australia: Prime Minister Tony Abbott said his country would take in an extra 12,000 migrants fleeing conflict in the Middle East. Priority would go to persecuted minorities — especially women, children and families — who are in camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, Abbott said.

Saudi Arabia: 0
Kuwait: 0
Qatar: 0
Bahrain: 0
United Arab Emirates: 250,000

[CNN]

Countries which have taken in the most Syrian refugees

Some 4.1 million Syrians are fleeing a homeland riven by more than four years of civil war. Some Mid East countries have taken in so many migrants it’s caused a population spike, while others have done little or nothing at all.

Turkey: 1.9 million – Remarkably, Turkey now shelters almost half of the Syrian refugees and clearly has more than it can handle. Geography explains much of it: Turkey and Syria share a border. The masses are so vast that 14% of them are sheltered in camps, U.S. figures show.

Lebanon: 1.1 million – The influx is so profound in Lebanon that the 1.1 million Syrian refugees mark a 25% increase in the country’s 4.4 million population. Those figures make Lebanon the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees, the United Nations says. It also shares a border with Syria.

Jordan: 629,000 – Jordan provides shelter to a large number of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan, but Syrians constitute the majority of Jordan’s refugee population. About 20% of the Syrian arrivals live in camps. The Syrian arrivals, however, strain resources and “could have a negative impact on Jordanian public opinion of refugees and make preserving the country’s asylum space in the country challenging,” the United Nations says.

Iraq: 249,000 – The notion of Syrian refugees in Iraq may strike some as ironic, if not absurd, because Iraq has deteriorated under sectarian strife and ISIS assaults, producing a sizable population of Iraqi refugees. Most of the Syrian refugees have settled in northern areas such as Irbil, Duhuk and Nineveh, which are among the closest to the Syrian border and have large Kurdish populations. About 38% of the Syrian refugees live in camps in Iraq, the U.S. State Department says.

Egypt: 132,000 – Egypt rounds out this look at how the Mideast hosts most of the Syrian refugees. No refugees live in camps there. In fact, Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, one of the region’s wealthiest men, has offered to buy an island for refugees. He would like to buy an isle from Greece or Italy. His name for the proposed island home: Hope.

[CNN]