Refugees Daily - Internal Global Press Review

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The anti-migrant sentiment taking hold in a slew of nations facing an influx of refugees is disturbing, dangerous and puts people's lives at risk, said the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Concern and suspicion about migrants is based on stereotypes, fear of national identity loss and a "post-9/11 security syndrome," said William Lacy Swing, director general of the Geneva-based intergovernmental IOM.

"Every person entering from abroad is potentially a terrorist, exacerbated now with what happened in Paris," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

The Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people, triggered concern that extremist militants could enter Europe amid the thousands of arriving migrants and prompted calls for nations to tighten their borders.

The waves of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere fleeing conflict-ridden homelands have fueled an "unprecedented anti-migrant sentiment," he said.

"We're very disturbed at the widespread anti-migrant sentiment that can lead to xenophobia and risks to migrants," he said. "The concern I have about a lot of statements that are being made on the public record right now is that it puts migrant lives at risk."

The head of the IOM, which has 162 member states and offices in more than 100 countries, spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation during a visit to New York.

Showing evidence that migrants contribute to productive societies is part of solving the current crisis, Swing said.

"All of our countries have always been open to new influx of people and it's always benefited us," he said. "So you have to come back to that again and again and give them figures, give them data, show them."

With more than 200 staffers in Syria, the IOM has helped more than 3.6 million people there with services including shelter, water and sanitation, an IOM spokesman said.

More than 4 million Syrians have sought refuge outside their country since civil war erupted in March 2011.

Asked if he would consider reaching out to political leaders stoking anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and the United States, Swing said: "We may have to. We probably will have to."

Swing said he would ask that they "look inside their own souls and see how do they evaluate how the U.S. and other countries developed with migrant labor and migrant brain power."

Swing has publicly praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her open-door refugee policy and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has pledged to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees by the new year.

(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
 

GENEVA: With almost a million people having crossed the Mediterranean as refugees and migrants so far this year, and conflicts in Syria and elsewhere continuing to generate staggering levels of human suffering, 2015 is likely to exceed all previous records for global forced displacement, the UN Refugee Agency has warned in a new report.

UNHCR's Mid-Year Trends 2015 report, covering the period from January to end June, and looking at worldwide displacement resulting from conflict and persecution, shows markers firmly in the red in each of the three major categories of displacement – refugees, asylum-seekers, and people forced to flee inside their own countries.

The global refugee total, which a year ago was 19.5 million, had as of mid-2015 passed the 20 million threshold (20.2 million) for the first time since 1992. Asylum applications meanwhile were up 78 percent (993 600) over the same period in 2014. And the numbers of internally displaced people jumped by about 2 million to an estimated 34 million. Indications from the first half of the year suggest 2015 is on track to see worldwide forced displacement exceeding 60 million for the first time. In a global context, that means that one person in every 122 has been forced to flee their home.

"Forced displacement is now profoundly affecting our times. It touches the lives of millions of our fellow human beings – both those forced to flee and those who provide them with shelter and protection," High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said.

"Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything," he added.

Beyond the headline numbers, the report shows worsening indicators in several key areas. Voluntary return rates – a measure of how many refugees can safely go back home and a barometer of the global state of conflict – are at their lowest levels in more than three decades (an estimated 84 000 people compared to 107 000 in the same period a year ago). In effect, if you become a refugee today your chances of going home are lower than at any time in more than 30 years.

New refugee numbers are also up sharply. About 839 000 people in just six months, equivalent to an average rate of almost 4 600 being forced to flee their countries every day. Syria's war remains the single biggest generator worldwide of both new refugees and continuing mass internal and external displacement. However, the report notes that even with Syria's war excluded from the measurements, the underlying trend remains one of rising displacement globally.

A consequence of more refugees being stuck in exile is that pressures on countries hosting them are growing too – something which unmanaged can increase resentment and abet politicisation of refugees. Despite such risks, the first half of 2015 was also marked by extraordinary generosity. On an absolute basis, and counting refugees who fall under UNHCR's mandate, Turkey is the world's biggest hosting country with 1.84 million refugees on its territory as of June 30.

Lebanon hosts more refugees compared to its population size than any other country, with 209 refugees per 1 000 inhabitants. And Ethiopia pays most in relation to the size of its economy with 469 refugees for every dollar of GDP (per capita, at PPP). Overall, the lion's share of the global responsibility for hosting refugees continues to be carried by countries immediately bordering zones of conflict.

Europe's influx of people arriving by boat via the Mediterranean is only partly reflected in the report, mainly as arrivals there have escalated in the second half of 2015 and outside the period covered by the report. Nonetheless, in the first six months of 2015, Germany was the world's biggest recipient of new asylum claims – 159 000. The second largest recipient was the Russian Federation with 100 000 claims, mainly people fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.