There is no migrant crisis in Europe or the Middle East at the moment; there is a refugee crisis. People who call it a migrant crisis clearly do not know the difference between a migrant and a refugee. A migrant merely moves from one place to another; whereas a refugee leaves his home in order to escape war, persecution or disaster. That there are millions of desperate people fleeing famine, civil war and ISIL from countries such as Syria, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea is, to most of the media, not enough for the crisis to be deemed a refugee crisis.
This misunderstanding has led to government inaction despite thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean and untold numbers of those who perished before leaving their countries. The Government has also rejected refugees for fear of angering voters who feel that migration is too high. This stems from a recent figure which suggests that net migration was over 330,000. However, the Government clearly misunderstands the distinction between a migrant and a refugee because it includes refugees and asylum seekers within the net migration figure.
It is at least pursuing a long-term response to the situation in being one of the largest bi-lateral aid-donors to Syria, donating over a £1 billion last year. But such a policy is inadequate for several reasons:
First, it does nothing to help the millions being displaced from their homelands and going without easily available safe haven. Therefore, this will in fact encourage more refugees to take the perilous journey across to Europe. Secondly, the government’s policy does not take action to support the pressure for asylum seekers places across Europe. For example, Germany is taking in 800,000 migrants this year alone. France will take 12,000 a year, whereas Britain’s miserable contribution is 4,000 a year. All of those are from camps in Syria so this does not alleviate pressure from European countries. Thirdly, as the aid is focussed on Syria it will not reduce the flow of refugees from other countries in the region. This means that there will still be more refugees entering Europe, adding to the strain on European countries.
Therefore, the government needs both a long-term and a short-term strategy to deal with the refugee crisis. In the short-term the UK needs to take its fair share of migrants from Syria and those already in Europe. Ultimately, the government needs to take steps to stabilise all countries that people are fleeing from, not just Syria. Clearly this is a complex issue, but as a start can we please stop being ignorant and call the situation what it actually is: a refugee crisis.
The Sixth Form Journal 