Report: “Displaced”

The refugee crisis in Europe

By Miguel Arriaga
A01028570

Geopolitics and technology change

Professor: Nikola Zivkovic
June 13th of 2020

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A more human side to refugees
Imagine you are living your normal life, you go to work every morning, take your children to
school, have a cup of coffee, come home to your family, everyone is healthy, life is good. Without
warning, troubles begin in your country, first you think to yourself, it will pass, things will go
back to normal soon. But they do not, things start to get more violent, more difficult. From one
day to another you lose your job, the school your children went to shuts down, fellow friends,
neighbors and coworkers start to disappear. And then it hits you, you must go. You leave
everything behind, home, friends… your life. From night to morning you need to pack your things
in a backpack and run into the unknown.
Before you can realize, you are on a boat at sea, the waves crash against the heavy and
weak boat. The ocean starts to get the best out of the boat, a boat that carries a very valuable
cargo: the lives of your family. And at that moment of chaos and desperation, of screams and
tears, there is only one thing on your mind: “What have I done?”.
The crisis
Unfortunately, this is the reality lived by 37,000 people every day. Refugees are people forced to
flee their homes, due to conflict or persecution. The largest percentage of refugees come from
Syria, Afghanistan, and South Sudan. (UNHCR. 2019). And are hosted in neighboring countries
and European countries like Turkey and Germany.
The refugees attempt to reach somewhere to live, displaced by conflicts such as the war
in Syria. This war began in 2011 and with around half a million lives lost and 5,000,000
displaced, it has become one of the most violent and cruel conflicts nowadays. These refugees
started creating routes to reach Europe, some by sea to Italy and Greece, other by land, through
Turkey and Hungary.
These long routes are known for being extremely dangerous, by sea 1,071 people died
last year trying to cross. Terrible stories have been told about this, most famously the case of the
little three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi and his family. Abdullah, his father, was the sole
survivor of the family that was trying to reach Europe through sea in September of 2015. Alan´s
“The boy on the beach” picture has traveled screens all around the world ever since. Just like the
case of Kurdi, there are thousands more that have not been able to cross alive.
Well, why don’t they take safer routes to Europe like airplanes? Well, it is very difficult
for refugees to get the proper papers to fly, a simple passport can be delayed for years. Airlines
are also sanctioned if they transport passengers without these documents and airline personnel
cannot properly decide who is a refugee or asylum seeker. Refugees do not have another option
but to risk their lives in those boats.
The camps
You finally get to the shore, you do not know where you are, what country this is, but that does
not matter, your family crossed safely and the worst already happened…at least that is what you
think. They start speaking to you in a foreign language, it turns out you find yourself in the island
of Lesbos, Greece. They give you food, start asking questions. Where do you come from? Where
are you headed? You are disoriented. Eventually you realize what is going on, you are miles
away from home, about to be placed in a refugee camp.

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 Finally, you think. Finally, a place you can live in. Unfortunately, the days go by and you
realize this camp is no better than the hell you lived back in Syria. There is no food, no beds, no
roof…
If refugees manage to get to Europe safely, they are commonly placed in refugee camps.
Very large and populated camps with limited food, entertainment, and life. "If you drown at sea,
it’s not like you're really alive here anyway." Says Youssef, a Syrian refugee referring to a camp
near Damascus. These people have left their dreams and homes behind; they feel like they do not
belong in these camps. Living in terrible conditions with only one hope: that they are given
asylum in a good European country.
In the best of cases, refugees obtain “refugee status” in the country they arrive to. Once
they obtain it, if lucky enough, they get an appointment to get a country that will accept them.
This meeting becomes the more important aspect of their lives, the goal: get placed in Germany.
Germany is known to be the European country most accepting of refugees. They sometimes
receive Refugees with a big applause, and it is where they have the biggest chance of getting a
job and a living a decent life. On the other hand, other countries such as Poland and Hungary
have shut down their borders to refugees, arguing they cannot sustain them and that they are a
danger to their cultures.
Outsiders
The date of your appointment finally arrives, you have been waiting so long for this, you are
getting a new home. Hoping for Germany. You go out of the meeting with mixed feelings, you
will be able to get out of this camp, but the country taking you is a place you barely know anything
about. Once you get there, you realize the apartment is old and dirty, you do not understand the
language one bit, it is nearly impossible for you to get a job and once more, you are an outsider.
The reality of most refugees that get asylum in Europe is this. With the increasing demand
there are very limited jobs and because of their lack of language they cannot compete.
Furthermore, they suffer from discrimination and xenophobia, a lot of Europeans accuse them of
being terrorists and invaders. In addition to this, there are not a lot of Muslim communities and
mosques where they can properly practice their religion. All of this makes them feel unwanted
and like they do not fit in. A lot of refugees run away from the countries they are assigned to after
a few weeks living there.
Xenophobia is any type of “attitudes, prejudices and behavior that reject, exclude and
very often vilify persons, based on the perception that they are outsiders to the community,
society or national identity”. (United Nations). In Europe, anti-refugee sentiments have started
to arise since 2016, as a result, various xenophobic leaders have rose in countries such as
Hungary. This, of course, is yet another challenge for refugees.
After considering it very well and being unable to get a job, you decide to leave the
country you where placed in. You take a bus to Germany and go to the first refugee camp you
can find. You feel like you are back to square one, and even though you know that they can deport
you any second, you still have not given up.
The story told throughout this report is based on the real stories of Abdullah Kurdi, who
very sadly lost his whole family at sea (read: The boy on the Beach, Tima Kurdi), and the story
of Taimaa Abazli and her baby Heln, that was born a refugee. Currently, Taimaa, her husband
and Heln are living in a camp in Germany, waiting for their fate to be decided. But they have not
lost hope for their daughter. (read: Finding Home, TIME)

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The solution
The refugee crisis going on in Europe is growing exponentially. There are more refugees, like
Abdullah and Taimaa, every day. The EU has been unable to respond to all of them. The initial
European refugee plans are not working any longer. We need a new short, medium, and long-
term plan.
For short term, I propose to improve the living conditions in refugee camps and even the
creation of a new refugee camp in each of the receiving countries (Italy, Greece, Turkey, etc.).
These camps would have the necessary equipment to treat Covid-19: medical staff, masks,
medicine, and everything to stop the spread. The camps would work as a transition zone while
more permanent long-term solutions can be implemented.
Currently, most of the help towards refugees is being given by private companies and
actors such as UNHCR (you can donate in donate.unhcr.org). The public sector has not been of
much help to refugees this far, and I believe we need to continue to push the government to help
these people who are in desperate needs.
Right now, there is not a combined plan or policy from the EU towards this crisis.
Therefore, I believe that in medium term, a new refugee plan needs to be created for the whole
European Union, where all the countries are aware and in sync of the way the process is going to
be. This way, each country would play a role in resolving the crisis, not leaving the receiving
countries alone to deal with it. The plan would consist of building safe routes for refugees to get
to different parts of Europe safely, dividing the refugee population. Southern countries would
oversee receiving the refugees initially and sending them to other country. Northern countries
would be integrating refugees to their societies and helping southern countries economically in
this process.
In the long term, the problem to solve is to successfully integrate the refugees into their
respective countries. For this, the EU standard rules would be for the refugees to have equal job
opportunities, school, construction of mosques and Arab/Muslim communities to continue their
religious practices and feel like home. Finally, anti-xenophobia campaigns would be launched
that teach the people of the country to respect and accept the refugees. This could all be done
with a new committee of the EU in charge of allocating the refugees and merging refugees and
non-refugees to live together in a European Union that historically has been known for
cooperation and diversity.
Conclusion
In conclusion, refugees are people just like you and I, they did not choose to live what they are
living. And they need our help. The crisis grows bigger every day, and refugees will not be able
to go back to their countries anytime soon. Consequently, Europe needs to accept them in their
continent and have empathy and solidarity. Otherwise, the crisis will continue going for a long
time.
To live away from your home is not easy, to leave everything behind and never know
what to expect. To lose family members and friends trying to reach better life conditions is not
easy. To be a refugee is not easy, not in Syria, not in Europe, not in Mexico, not anywhere.
This crisis seems very complicated and hard to end, but there is one way to make it
simpler and that is cooperating. Cooperation is what is going to defeat this crisis, and the ones to
come. As a species we should work together and care for the other as much as we possibly can,

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only this was we will prosper. We have seen it in the refugee crisis for the past 9 years, and we
are now seeing it in the Coronavirus crisis.

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References
(2016) “Syria: the story of the conflict”. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
middle-east-26116868
(2019) “Mediterranean Migrant Arrivals Reach 76,558 in 2019; Deaths Reach 1,071” Retrieved
from: https://www.iom.int/news/mediterranean-migrant-arrivals-reach-76558-2019-deaths-
reach-1071
(2019) “World Refugee Day 2019”. Retrieved from: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/world-
refugee-day-
2019#:~:text=An%20unprecedented%2070.8%20million%20people,due%20to%20conflict%20
or%20persecution.
(2020) “European Mirant Crisis” Retrieved from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis#Germany
(2020) “Syrian civil war”. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
(2020) “THE WORLD'S REFUGEES IN NUMBERS” Retrieved from:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/refugees-asylum-seekers-and-migrants/global-
refugee-crisis-statistics-and-facts/
Aljazeera (2020) “Life on hold”. Retrieved from:
http://lifeonhold.aljazeera.com/#/en/portraits/youssef
Baker. A (2020) “Finding home” Retrieved from: https://time.com/finding-home/
Deardof. S (2018) “Xenophobia toward Refugees and Other Forced Migrants” Retrieved from:
https://www.cigionline.org/publications/xenophobia-toward-refugees-and-other-forced-
migrants
Galaski. J (2018) “Ever Wondered Why Refugees Don’t Take the Plane?” Retrieved from:
https://www.liberties.eu/en/news/why-refugees-do-not-take-the-plane/16529
Grant. H (2020) “UN calls for urgent evacuation of Lesbos refugee camp”. Retrieved from:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/11/un-calls-for-urgent-evacuation-
of-lesbos-refugee-camp
Kurdi. T (2018) “The boy on the beach” Simon & Schuster: New York.
UNHCR “Figures at glance”. Retrieved from: https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html