A young Syrian refugee in a refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. © ALI ALSHEIKH KHEDR / Amnesty International
By Brad Fagan, Media Intern at Amnesty International.
‘Never Again’ is a slogan that found its way into our vocabulary following the Holocaust. It has been used to reference various atrocities ever since. Yet the slogan is now more often used as a bad joke by more than a few social commentators who have noticed trends in genocide, mass violence, war and other human rights abuses.
Right now, we are facing the worst humanitarian crisis in a generation. More than 50 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, one in every five of those are Syrian. Take a moment to understand that this is the highest number of displaced peoples globally since World War II.
In Syria a monumental figure of 190,000 people are reported to have died, with some 12.2 million people in urgent need of humanitarian aid.
To break it down with even more numbers.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the Syrian conflict. 11.6 million men, women and children have fled their homes to escape the conflict, a staggering figure almost three times the population of New Zealand.
Around 7.6 million people have been displaced within Syria, and four million have fled the country, with 3.8 million of them being hosted in five main countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, but those countries are struggling to cope. Only two per cent have been resettled by the rest of the world.
But the main thing to remember here is that behind these numbers, are real people. And the fact of the matter is – the international community has failed them.
When the world considers refugees, they seem to forget that they are ordinary people just like the rest of us, except that their lives have often been catastrophically destroyed as a result of conflict and they are forced to start from scratch.
Why should it be difficult for us to help more people like Mariam from Damascus who has three children? She and her two daughters were taken in by a family after they couldn’t afford rent. They sleep in the living room, her son lives on the street as there is no room at the home. Her twin girls have both attempted suicide. It is her wish to leave her “desperate life” and be resettled.
So far New Zealand has pledged to take just 100 Syrian refugees over a two year period. This number is from within, and not in addition to, our current humanitarian quota of only 750 places.
The simple fact is we urgently need to do more. This is about as black and white as it gets. I have read and listened to arguments against raising New Zealand’s refugee quota. People say ‘we are small’ (so is Sweden but they’ve pledged to take 1200 refugees), ‘we already take a lot of immigrants’ (Germany have pledged to take 30,000 Syrian refugees), ‘it’s not our problem, we are on the other side of the world’ (This doesn’t free us from our responsibility).
If a tiny country with a weak economy and huge debt like Lebanon can accommodate a 26 per cent increase of its population the rest of the world can certainly be doing more to help.
Yes, a crisis of this magnitude may seem overwhelming. But I don’t think anyone believes we are doing all we can when our Government has only committed to taking in 100 refugees. The point is we can do more, we should be doing more and the international community needs to wake up to these atrocities.
There is a concrete solution here – resettlement. Nearly 380,000 people have been identified as vulnerable and in urgent need of resettlement by the UN refugee agency, (UNHCR).
Amnesty International is calling for at least five per cent of Syria’s refugees to be resettled globally by the end of 2015, with a further five per cent resettled by 2016. This would ensure that all those currently identified as in need of resettlement by UNHCR would be given places.
Here in New Zealand the Government can start by immediately accepting 100 more Syrian refugees for resettlement, and make a longer term promise to increase the refugee quota.
It really is time for New Zealand, along with other world leaders, to share the responsibility for Syria’s refugees by increasing the number of resettlement places made available for Syria’s most vulnerable refugees.
Make no mistake this is the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time. 100 more refugees is merely a drop in a bucket, but that’s 100 lives that will be saved. Innocent men, women and children who can be given a new start.
It’s the least we can do.
#OpenToSyria
Read more:
http://www.amnesty.org.nz/files/Hardship%2C%20Hope%20and%20Resettlement.pdf
