Transcript Quick facts: European migrant crisis

Refugees: From Syria
and Afghanistan to
Climate Change
Quick facts and statistics
Ruslan Trad
14 International Youth Conference
Krusevo 2016
Quick facts: What you need to
know about the Syria crisis
 Anti-government demonstrations began in
March of 2011, part of the Arab Spring. But
the peaceful protests quickly escalated
after the government's violent crackdown
 Anti-government demonstrations began in
March of 2011, part of the Arab Spring. But
the peaceful protests quickly escalated
after the government's violent crackdown
 Divisions between secular and Islamist
fighters, and between ethnic groups,
continue to complicate the politics of the
conflict.
 In October 2015, Russia began launching
airstrikes at ISIS targets in Syria.
 In early February 2016, fighting around
Aleppo city intensified and the main route
for humanitarian aid was cut off.
 In August 2016 Turkey began military
operation inside Northern Syria
Quick facts: What you need to know about
the Syria humanitarian crisis
 Syria’s civil war is the worst humanitarian
crisis of our time.
 Half the country’s pre-war population —
more than 11 million people — have been
killed or forced to flee their homes.
 Families are struggling to survive inside
Syria, or make a new home in neighboring
countries. Others are risking their lives on
the way to Europe, hoping to find
acceptance.
 According to the U.N., it will take $7.7
billion to meet the urgent needs
 The U.N. estimates that 6.6 million people
are internally displaced.
 Near 200 000 arrested or jailed.
 Near 5 million became refugees.
Quick facts: Where are
they fleeing to?
 Many Syrian refugees are living in Jordan and
Lebanon
 In August 2013, more Syrians escaped into
northern Iraq at a newly opened border
crossing.
 BUT now they are trapped by that country's
own insurgent conflict, and Iraq is struggling to
meet the needs of Syrian refugees on top of
more than 1 million internally displaced Iraqis.
 An increasing number of Syrian refugees are
fleeing across the border into Turkey,
overwhelming urban host communities and
creating new cultural tensions.
 Hundreds of thousands of refugees are also
attempting the dangerous trip across the
Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece
 Thousands of Syrians flee their country every
day. In 2012, there were 100,000 refugees. By
April 2013, there were 800,000. That doubled
to 1.6 million in less than four months.
How many
refugees are
children?
 According to the U.N., more than
half of all Syrian refugees are under
the age of 18. Most have been out of
school for months, if not years.
 The youngest are confused and
scared by their experiences, lacking
the sense of safety and home they
need. The older children are forced
to grow up too fast, finding work and
taking care of their family in
desperate circumstances.
Starvation as a
weapon of war
• Madaya is one example of the depth
of the humanitarian crisis facing the
region.
• According to the UN there are at
least 400,000 people living under
siege in 15 towns across Syria.
• Doctors Without Borders say that 35
people have died of starvation in
Madaya alone since the beginning of
December 2015, with more than 250
people suffering from severe acute
malnutrition.
Napalm and White Phosphorus
used as weapon
Napalm, Daraya
White Phosphorus, Aleppo
Torture
• Since 2011, thousands of people have
died in custody in Syria’s brutal detention
centres. Tens of thousands more have
experienced shocking torture.
• People have been brutally beaten, raped,
given electric shocks and more, often to
extract forced “confessions”.
• 28,000 photos of deaths in government
custody that were smuggled out of Syria
and first came to public attention in
January 2014.
 Syria: Stories Behind Photos of Killed
Detainees
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/16/s
yria-stories-behind-photos-killeddetainees
Quick facts: What you need to know about the
Afghanistan crisis
•
Afghanistan is a facing a complex humanitarian
crisis, stemming from the many challenges that
have confronted Afghanistan over the past four
decades.
•
0.7 million Afghans need emergency shelter and
related support; 1.7 million lack food security; 3.1
million health; 2.9 million nutrition; 1.7 million
protection; and 1.5 million water, sanitation, and
hygiene.
•
These increasing humanitarian needs in
Afghanistan have directly resulted from a
dramatic spike in violence across the country,
following the withdrawal of most of international
forces at the end of 2014.
•
2015 was one of the bloodiest years in
Afghanistan, during which some 11,000 innocent
Afghans were killed
•
Taliban in offensive, control of 80% of the biggest
province, Helmand.
Quick facts: What you need to know about
the Afghanistan humanitarian crisis
• Fled their country as a consequence of the
long-going Afghan conflict, lasting since
1978. Ever since the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, refugees have fled into the
surrounding states. After the Soviets left,
civil war, Taliban conquest, and most
recently the Western-led invasion after
September 11, 2001 have meant constant
warfare in Afghanistan.
• Since 2001, more than 5.7 million former
refugees have returned to Afghanistan, but
2.2 million others remained refugees in
2013. In January 2013 the UN estimated
that 547,550 were internally displaced
persons, a 25% increase over the 447,547
IDPs estimated for January 2012.
• Top 3 countries: 2,500,000 in Pakistan;
2,400,000 in Iran; 300,000 in UAE
Afghans in Iran
• Iran hosts some three million Afghan
refugees, many of whom have poured into
the country since the United States-led
invasion in 2001.
• Iranian government of severe maltreatment
of Afghans, including summary deportations,
physical abuse at the hands of security
forces, limited job opportunities outside
menial labour, and restricted access to
education.
• However, the EU had drafted a plan to send
80,000 Afghan refugees back to their wartorn country and today, the fate of Europe's
Afghan refugees remains unclear.
• Iran has been recruiting thousands of Afghan
refugees to fight in pro-government armed
groups in neighbouring Syria
Quick facts: European
migrant crisis
• Began in 2015, when a rising number of
refugees and migrants made the journey to
the European Union (EU) to seek asylum
and for better living standards, travelling
across the Mediterranean Sea or through
Southeast Europe.
• Top 3 nationalities of the over one million
Mediterranean Sea arrivals between
January 2015 and March 2016 were Syrian
(46.7%), Afghan (20.9%) and Iraqi (9.4%).
• Ongoing conflicts and refugee crises in
several Asian and African countries, which
increased the total number of forcibly
displaced people worldwide at the end of
2014 to almost 60 million, the highest level
since World War II.
Maps of refugees ways to EU
Map 1
Map 2
In Global View
Climate, Environmental refugees
• The term climate refugees or climate
migrants refers to the subset of
environmental migrants forced to
move "due to sudden or gradual
alterations in the natural environment
related to at least one of three
impacts of climate change: sea-level
rise, extreme weather events, and
drought and water scarcity.
• The world will have 150-200 million
climate change refugees by 2050.
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