In recent time, Europe has been witnessing one of the most severe refugee crises since the World War-II. In early part of 2015, about 3 lakh people knocked the door of asylum. This is apart from the 6.25 lakh applications that were received in the year 2014.
According to an estimate of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the influx of migrant continues to grow as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are still facing a number of problems like terrorism, sectarian violence along with unrest among the civil population.
Information about These Refugees
Though for Europe, the African originated refugee problem has more or less become chronic, influx in recent times has a number of new sources.
Most of the refugees are from Syria, a country that is completely war-torn. Since the very beginning of civil war in the year 2011, about 2 million people were compelled to leave the country to neighbouring countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. These people were given shelter along with other basic facilities in the camps sponsored by the UN.
However, very recently, as the refugee camps have got overcrowded and there seems to have no end to the ongoing conflict in Syria, refugees started moving to safe heavens in Europe for their safety, security and well-being.
Apart from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Libya, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia are among other major source countries
Reasons for their migration to Europe
There are many reasons for the influx of migrants to Europe. These reasons however differ from one country to another and thus, can be classified under two parts: Push factors and Pull Factors.
Push Factors
• Terrorist activities as a regular affair in countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan
• Sectarian violence of Shia-Sunni in countries like Syria and Iraq
• Gross violations of human rights that get manifested as compulsory national service in Eritrea forcing about 5000 people migrate from the country
• Absence of a rule of law because of power vacuum in Somalia compelling the citizens to cross the Mediterranean
Pull Factors
• Proximity due to geographical location: For most asylum seekers, only the Mediterranean Sea is safe way between their trouble-ridden present and wishful future. Therefore, the crisis is considered a synonym to the phrase Mediterranean Migrant Crisis.
• Trust in the European Administration: The firm belief of the refugees that they won’t be denied the legitimate basic right to life in the rule bound and humane government of Europe, they are reluctant to seek asylum in the well-off Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman, etc. despite their cultural affinity to these countries.
• Opportunities for employment: The European labour market is mature enough to provide the migrants immediate employment opportunities so that they could restart their lives.
Issued Concerned
The issues that are intertwined with the ongoing migration crisis in the Europe are as follows:
Dublin Procedure: According to the Dublin procedure, the first EU country where a migrant or refugee enters is held accountable for processing asylum claim. This in turn puts a huge pressure on countries like Greece and Italy where most of the people seeking asylum arrived first.
Since most asylum seekers wish to go to Germany, Sweden or France, questions here arise as to why register and house asylum seekers in a country where they themselves are not willing to stay in any case.
Opening Up of Fault Lines within the EU: The crisis led to the opening up of structural fault lines within Europe. Most of the smaller countries having low financial resources, like Hungary, do not want to share the burden.
Even, some of them are of the view that the big countries like France and Germany should come forward and take upon them the burden because such a situation has arisen due to their participation in the NATO-led war in the source countries
Further, a growing disagreement among the larger nations is seen on the formula of relocating refugees within the European Union.
Moral Dilemma of Europe: Since most of the European economies are still under the shadow of the global financial crisis of 2008, it would be a matter to be seen as how far they could accommodate the migrants’ interests without austerity measures.
Besides, if the rights to legitimate asylum seekers is denied, it is nothing but the violation of the article 18 (Right to Asylum), Article II-78 and Article III-266 of the European Constitution which is the foundation of EU.
Schengen Agreement: In the last one month, countries such as Germany and Hungary came forward to suspend the implementation of the agreement so as to keep a control over the migrant influx whose only purpose is to ease people movement across international borders without any compulsory checks.
Integrating the Migrants: One of the most relevant problems related to migrant rehabilitation is to what extent their integration will be successful provided the presence of anti-Islam sentiment in the European society because of many reasons.
Measures That Have Been Taken Till Date
At a summit level meeting on 23 September 2015, the European Union nations came to an agreement to offer an extra 1.1 billion euros to the UN agencies known to indulge in rehabilitating the migrants.
EU increased funding to maritime surveillance so as to avoid drowning incidents in the Mediterranean. According to an estimate, in 2014 itself, 3500 people were found dead or missing in the sea while moving through the route to nearby European islands.
The European Commission put forth a proposition of internal relocation of 120000 migrants based on a mandatory distribution key by making use of objective and quantifiable criteria, 40 percent of the size of the population and the GDP, 10 percent of the average number of past asylum applications and the unemployment rate.
Further, the formula is applied to nationalities of applicants who have an EU-wide average recognition rate of 75 percent or more.
Additionally, Europe, the USA and Australia were having the desire to accommodate 10000 and 12000 refugees respectively in the next one year.
Learning for India
Refugee problem has never been a new problem to India as it faced a sudden outburst of migrants from Bangladesh in the year 1971, from Afghanistan because of USSR’s intervention in 1979 and from Sri Lanka due to the civil war between the armed forces and the LTTE.
Still, learning from the ongoing crisis, India should strenthen its diplomatic engagement so as to bring out a special convention on climate refugees.
For India, the engagement is quite important as half of Bangladesh is situated in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ), within 10 meters above sea level which usually submerges as sea levels are set to rise because of the changes in climate.
Further, Maldives, another neighbour, is also under the threat of extinction because of similar reasons.
Conclusion
The ongoing crisis is a grim remainder of the fact that most communities in the world are still far from the essentials because of chronic problems such as hunger, poverty, terrorism, mal administration, along with sectarian violence, etc.
Though we have made a big progress in nurturing peace, security and socio-economic development, millions of people are still struggling for basic needs of life.
It is right time when the world leaders come together and find solution to the problem of migration on a permanent basis in order to ensure timely achievement of recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals.