T

he number of people displaced by conflict, persecution, and violence worldwide fell in 2025 for the first time in more than a decade, according to a new report released by the United Nations refugee agency on Thursday. However, the agency warned that millions of refugees remain trapped in prolonged displacement, often spending years or even decades away from their homes with little prospect of rebuilding their lives.

The report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) found that 5.4 million people were newly displaced during 2025, while a significant increase in refugee and internally displaced persons returning home contributed to a decline in overall displacement figures.

Despite the improvement, the agency estimated that there were still 41.6 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations around the world by the end of the year, including approximately 6 million Palestinian refugees.

UNHCR officials described the figures as a mixed picture, highlighting both encouraging signs of return and persistent challenges facing millions who remain displaced.

“Displacement levels remain extraordinarily high despite the positive trend in returns,” the agency said, stressing that many returnees face insecurity, economic hardship, and damaged infrastructure upon returning to their countries.

Record returns drive decline

A key factor behind the decline in global displacement was a sharp increase in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons returning home.

According to the report, around 14.7 million people returned to their places of origin in 2025, representing a 50 percent increase compared with the previous year and marking the second-highest annual return figure recorded since UNHCR began tracking such data in 1965.

The majority of those returns took place in six countries: Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, and Myanmar.

While the figures suggest growing opportunities for return in some conflict-affected countries, UNHCR cautioned that many people went back to difficult and often unstable conditions.

In several countries, returnees encountered damaged infrastructure, limited access to healthcare and education, ongoing insecurity, and weak economic prospects, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of their return.

Afghan returns surge

Afghanistan recorded one of the most dramatic shifts in refugee movements during 2025.

UNHCR reported that approximately 2.9 million Afghans returned home during the year, including 1.9 million refugees. The number was five times higher than in 2024 and significantly reduced the global Afghan refugee population from 5.8 million to 3.7 million.

The agency attributed much of the increase to stricter immigration and residency policies introduced by neighboring Iran and Pakistan, which host some of the world’s largest Afghan refugee populations.

Many Afghans reported feeling compelled to return rather than making a fully voluntary decision, according to the report.

The findings underscore the complex nature of refugee returns, where movements are not always driven by improved conditions in countries of origin but sometimes by changing policies in host states.

Syria sees major shift

The report also highlighted significant changes in Syria, long regarded as one of the world’s largest displacement crises.

Following the collapse of the government of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, approximately 1.3 million Syrians returned to their homes during 2025. The figure was nearly three times higher than the previous year and contributed to a reduction in the global Syrian refugee population from 6 million to 4.9 million.

However, UNHCR warned that the challenges facing returning Syrians remain severe.

Large parts of the country continue to suffer from widespread destruction caused by years of conflict. Many communities lack basic services, employment opportunities remain scarce, and sporadic violence continues in some regions.

The agency stressed that successful return requires not only physical safety but also access to housing, education, healthcare, and economic opportunities.

M

ore than 4.1 million people have been internally displaced across the Middle East since the start of the latest military escalation, the United Nations warned on Thursday, highlighting growing humanitarian needs across several countries.

Speaking at a news briefing, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the conflict is worsening an already severe humanitarian situation in the region.

“The region is home to some of the largest numbers of people in need of humanitarian assistance globally,” Dujarric said. “More than 4.1 million people have been internally displaced in Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon and Pakistan since the beginning of the escalation.”

In addition, approximately 117,000 people have fled across international borders seeking refuge in neighboring countries.

“The recent escalation risks deepening civilian suffering and causing further damage to already fragile civilian infrastructure,” he added.

Humanitarian agencies, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), are continuing relief efforts while preparing to expand their response as displacement and humanitarian needs rise.

Lebanon airstrikes drives mass displacement

The situation in Lebanon remains particularly volatile as fighting intensifies between Israel and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

According to the Lebanese government, more than 816,000 people have registered as displaced since the escalation began on March 2. The figure includes approximately 285,000 children. Over 125,000 displaced people are currently sheltering in nearly 600 collective centers across the country.

UN officials warned that the real number of displaced people is likely higher.

Fighting escalated sharply overnight, with large-scale military operations reported in several areas including Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health says at least 634 people have been killed and more than 1,500 injured since hostilities began.

The UN also raised concerns about the safety of its personnel stationed in the country. Dujarric reported that an explosion occurred roughly 15 meters from a UN position in eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, though no injuries were reported.

He stressed that all parties must respect international humanitarian law and ensure the safety of peacekeepers and civilians.

Rising casualties and infrastructure damage in Iran

In Iran, more than 1,300 people have been killed and over 17,000 injured since Feb. 28.

The escalation has also caused extensive damage to civilian infrastructure.

According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, more than 17,000 residential buildings and over 4,000 commercial properties have been damaged. The Ministry of Education reports that at least 120 schools have been destroyed.

Iranian authorities have been providing emergency shelter in government buildings and metro stations in the capital, Tehran, while emergency teams work to support displaced residents.

The Red Crescent has activated its nationwide volunteer network, including search and rescue teams, medical services and logistics support.

Gaza conditions remain dire

In the Gaza Strip, humanitarian agencies say the situation remains critical amid continued strikes, shelling and gunfire.

According to OCHA, an overnight attack struck a displacement site in western Gaza City, killing at least one person and injuring several others. The strike also caused a fire that damaged dozens of tents sheltering displaced families.

Food security partners warn that supplies remain limited, driving up prices for fresh vegetables, firewood and cooking gas, particularly during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Humanitarian organizations say some community kitchens have been forced to alter their meal programs, while others have paused fresh food distributions due to shortages and high costs.

So far this month, approximately 400,000 people have received food rations, though aid agencies say portions were reduced by half in February after many aid trucks were turned back at the Kerem Shalom Crossing, the only operational entry point for humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

UN officials stress that humanitarian assistance alone cannot meet the growing needs without a steady flow of commercial goods into the territory.

Explosive remnants of war also continue to threaten civilians as humanitarian teams conduct assessments to identify and remove hazardous ordnance across the enclave.

E

uropean leaders used the final day of the Munich Security Conference to counter sharp criticism from Washington, with the EU’s top diplomat rejecting what she called “Europe-bashing” and dismissing claims that the continent risks cultural or political collapse.

Kaja Kallas said talk of a declining, “woke” Europe was detached from reality.

“Contrary to what some may say, ‘woke, decadent Europe’ is not facing civilizational erasure,” she told delegates, arguing that the European project continues to draw interest from far beyond the continent.

Kallas welcomed remarks from Marco Rubio a day earlier stressing that the United States and Europe are historically bound together.

“The message that we heard is that America and Europe are intertwined, have been in the past and will be in the future. I think this is important,” she said.

But she cautioned that disputes will endure. “It is also clear that we don’t see eye to eye on all the issues, and this will remain the case.”

Roots of the dispute

Tensions flared after a U.S. national security strategy released in December warned that European migration trends and political choices could leave the continent “unrecognizable” within decades. European commentators reacted with alarm, with newspapers such as Le Monde saying readers were stunned by language suggesting Europe was engaged in “civilizational erasure.”

The document also accused European governments of limiting free speech and suppressing opposition, despite high press-freedom rankings across EU member states.

American officials in recent years have frequently framed their concerns using arguments critics link to the so-called “great replacement” narrative, an idea that has circulated widely in far-right movements.

In his own address, Rubio sought to soften the atmosphere, insisting the trans-Atlantic partnership remains fundamental even as Washington pushes hard on issues such as immigration, trade and climate.

He said the United States does not seek a break with Europe, a line many participants viewed as an attempt to steady relations after months of uncertainty.

Russia and Ukraine front and center

Beyond the exchange with Washington, Kallas urged Europeans to remain firm toward Russia as diplomatic efforts continue to explore ways to end the war in Ukraine.

“Let’s be clear-eyed about Russia. Russia is no superpower,” she said, describing the country as “broken” and warning that Moscow must not be allowed to secure more through negotiations than it has achieved militarily.

She argued that Europe’s security “starts in Ukraine” and said any settlement should involve limits on Russia’s military capacity, reparations for damage caused by the invasion and accountability for war crimes.

Other officials echoed the need for Europe to rely more on itself. Benjamin Haddad, France’s minister for European affairs, said Europeans should concentrate less on comforting words from U.S. speeches and more on strengthening their own defenses.

“The worst lesson we could draw,” he said, would be to relax instead of accelerating rearmament and support for Kyiv.

Despite the friction, Kallas said Rubio’s comments confirmed that the bond across the Atlantic remains real, even if increasingly complex.

Differences over migration, climate and trade are likely to persist, she said, but the task now is to manage them while preserving cooperation on shared security challenges.

If you want, I can adapt this into a punchier front-page style, a broadcast script, or a shorter news agency brief.

(Source: AFP)

O

ne common feature of European populist parties has been their anti-establishment and alternative claims. They desired radical changes, such as opposition to the EU or NATO, or opposition to the common currency. However, over time, they have become more compatible with both global power and national hierarchies. They have not shied away from making concessions in order to realise their policies through power rather than by remaining in opposition. One of the most important reasons for the existence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was the 2015 refugee influx and Merkel’s acceptance of it with her ‘we can do it’ motto.

What popularised the AfD, however, were its ‘remigration’ policies based on opposition to refugees. When it was founded in 2013, it was a party of anti-EU conservative liberal professors and senior executives, feeding on elitist reactions rather than being a people’s party.

The 2015 refugee influx, accompanied by Islamophobic connotations and the fears it brought, helped the AfD movement gain traction within society, with nationalist radicals within the party coming to the fore. When the riots and assaults during New Year’s celebrations in Cologne at the end of 2015 were blamed on North Africans, the AfD’s rhetoric and fears had already found their social counterpart.

A party looking to the future

At the beginning of 2015, despite losing popularity after an internal power struggle, the party’s support surged from 3% to over 10% following the refugee influx and Merkel’s famous ‘We can do it’ statement. However, the party still lacked a clearly defined programme. The party, which had undergone a change in leadership, saw different factions rallying behind different names. It was filled with small groups of leaders comprising libertarians, conservatives and radical nationalists.

Populist parties such as the AfD position themselves not as nationalist parties looking to the past, but rather as parties focused on the future. Therefore, instead of reckoning with the past, they take on the task of cleansing the future. The AfD speaks not of a thousand years of history, but of a thousand years of hope. A protectionism based on the future rather than on past superiority distances populist parties from ‘crime’. Ultimately, there is no place for refugees in their clean future. In this context, they consider themselves protective rather than exclusionary.

Rather than ridding themselves of the dregs of the past, they are sanitising the future. Ultimately, this kind of pacifist attitude also protects populist parties from encountering criminal law. On the other hand, Höcke, one of the party’s radicals, makes subtextual references to the ‘thousand-year Reich’ when talking about the future, which actually shows that the message is intended to hit home. Furthermore, the AfD’s use of the term ‘old parties’ when referring to parties outside its own ranks can also be considered part of its future-oriented politics.

When it was first established, the AfD relied on conservative upper-middle-class reactions based on opposition to the single currency and the EU, while also managing to garner the reactions of the lower classes during the 2015 refugee wave. Today, however, it can easily abandon or postpone its policy of reducing the number of refugees and foreigners in order to share power. Moreover, it does not include the supremacy of the dominant culture, with its nationalist connotations, in its programme.

The understanding of dominant culture based on establishing a cultural hierarchy has been replaced by a more pacifist claim to preserve culture. In this sense, it is increasingly taking the place of conservative right-wing parties. The political stance defending German dominant culture (leitkultur) and based on opposition to refugees made the AfD the leading party in the last decade but failed to bring it into power. The AfD parliamentary group has seen that the path to sharing power lies in compromising on dominant culture and opposition to refugees and has therefore not hesitated to change its political stance.

The desire for power and east Germany

Across Europe, there is a growing tendency for populist parties to seek power through Melonization. Pragmatic populism increases its concessions on core policies as it approaches power. One of the common characteristics of European populist parties is their pragmatism regarding power. Populist parties that have managed to transform their anti-Semitism into Islamophobia, which is less harmful to them and even gains them sympathy, and their belief in the superiority of their own nation into claims that preserve their political identity, have few principles they will not abandon on the path to power. The development of the AfD is somewhat different. Other populist parties in Europe have come to power with radical rhetoric and gradually abandoned it on their path to power.

The AfD, on the other hand, presented itself with liberal and conservative rhetoric such as opposition to the euro and reached around 5 per cent, found its footing with radical rhetoric such as opposition to refugees and Islam, but finally surpassed 20 per cent with claims of preserving the dominant culture and reverse migration, softening its exclusionary rhetoric in order to share power. Its emergence as the leading party with around 25 per cent in the latest opinion polls has triggered the AfD’s desire for power, and the harshness of its rhetoric has softened. On the other hand, the Christian Democrats have directed their opposition particularly towards Chancellor Merz in order to force him into a coalition with them.

The conservative right, based on Christian Democrats, has long sought to counter populist parties by adopting their slogans, thereby further legitimising parties such as the AfD within the political spectrum. The opposition to power-sharing with populist parties, constructed like a ‘firewall’ in German politics, is losing its meaning as the AfD grows. The fact that the coalition does not allow any party to implement only its own policies also leads to populist parties accusing conservatives of not keeping their word. Parties that consider themselves large enough to share power, such as the AfD, are particularly putting pressure on conservative parties and forcing them into coalition with themselves.

Reactions rather than political concepts

They readily soften their political claims in order to overcome the political firewall that excludes them. It still seems sociologically impossible for parties like the AfD, which are based on reactions rather than political concepts, to have the majority needed to govern the country alone. Therefore, they must enter into a coalition and share power. Their quick abandonment of the political claims reflected in their slogans is actually partly due to their sociological limitations.

The AfD draws a large portion of its social support from East Germany. In a sense, East German opposition to reunification is concentrated in the AfD. East Germans perceive reunification as an unequal relationship and believe they have no influence in German politics. Although the proportion of foreigners in their cities is not high, their location on the front lines of the refugee influx fuels xenophobia. They are also not in line with the federal government’s anti-Russian policies. Russia, with whom they have collaborated for many years, is not an enemy in the eyes of East Germans.

On the other hand, while struggling with economic backwardness, they also find the environmental and green policies of the West German welfare state unnecessary. For this reason, the party they are furthest from is the Greens. However, apart from the CDU, the other traditional parties already have a significant share of the vote. Apart from the CDU, they have no serious political rival other than Sahra Wagenknecht’s Union (BSW), which has culturally right-wing and economically left-wing policies.

Their belief that East Germany’s backwardness and political problems can only be solved with strong leadership strengthens their inclination towards the AfD. On the other hand, the migration of qualified and young people from East Germany due to underdevelopment, while older and less educated people remain behind, also increases the tendency towards parties such as the AfD. Like other populist parties, the AfD also relies heavily on the theme that the people have been abandoned by the elite and those in power.

W

hen assessed as a whole across four contexts, the Turkey-Italy-Libya Summit has signaled the first signs of a search for a new balance in the Mediterranean. In the geostrategic sphere, a framework linking the Eastern Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa. In the economic sphere, a development vision supported by energy, integration and logistics routes. In the regional cooperation sphere, technical committees, multilateral formats and a process institutionalized with UN support, and finally, in the context of EU security, common solutions to irregular migration and human trafficking stand out.

The trilateral summit between Turkey, Italy and Libya, held in Istanbul in early August, was a critical meeting where long-term strategic lines for the Mediterranean basin and Africa were discussed. This summit also presents a framework that is coherent in terms of geostrategic, economic, regional cooperation and European security contexts. Each of these contexts exists and functions as interlinked rings. Therefore, it is a fact that this trilateral summit cannot be reduced to a single dimensional parameter.

From the Eastern Mediterranean to Sub-Saharan Africa

One of the most critical aspects of the tripartite summit is the new equation it presents in a geostrategic context. The Eastern Mediterranean has long been at the center of attention due to energy discoveries, disputes over maritime jurisdiction and regional competition. The maritime jurisdiction agreement signed by Turkey with Libya in 2019 invalidated the plans of Greece and the Greek Cypriot Administration (GCA) and suspended projects such as the EastMed pipeline. Today, the fact that Italy, a member of the EU and NATO, is sitting at the same table with Turkey and Libya confirms this agreement. Thus, a geopolitical reality has emerged in which Greece and the GCA are isolated, and the Ankara-Tripoli-Rome axis has been strengthened.

However, in this geostrategic picture, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Turkey are dimensions that should not be overlooked. Israel’s rhetoric has recently increased, tending to portray Turkey as a “threat center”. As in the cases of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, the reasons cited are the expansion of defense industry capacity, the construction of a nuclear energy reactor for peaceful purposes, and support for Palestine. In particular, allegations are being made that the nuclear power plant in Akkuyu is intended for a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, Turkey’s UAV base in the TRNC, its signal intelligence facilities and its reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities are being presented by Israel as potential threats. These statements actually reveal that Israel has pursued a strategy of dividing the area into small pieces rather than engaging in a major conflict directly, thereby restricting the opponent’s room for maneuver through rhetoric and alliances.

To this end, Israel is increasing its efforts to build closer ties with the Republic of Cyprus and Greece. It is noteworthy that, despite Turkey not pursuing a policy of hostility towards any actor in its own region or within the global system, various actors share common ground with Israel through their opposition to Turkey. In this context, the Turkey-Italy-Libya cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean has the potential to act as a balancing factor against new alliance initiatives targeting Turkey, in addition to energy and migration issues and the Cyprus case.

Energy, Integration and Logistics Routes

The economic agenda became a natural complement to the geostrategic picture. At the summit, joint projects in the energy, oil and gas sectors, port investments, infrastructure projects and Libya’s connection to regional projects in the Mediterranean in terms of connectivity were at the forefront. Indeed, these issues serve as tools for economic cooperation and strategic integration. Turkey’s infrastructure and construction experience, combined with Italy’s energy investments through ENI, present a critical opportunity for cooperation in Libya’s reconstruction process.

In terms of logistics routes, the transformation of Libya’s ports into a new bridge to Europe and the interior of Africa is in line with the common interests of the three countries. Thus, it creates an effect that strengthens economic integration, security and geopolitical interests. At this point, the potential of economic development to mitigate the driving factors of migration will also enable energy and infrastructure projects to have a mitigating effect on irregular migration in the future. Therefore, it is considered that the economic agenda is directly linked to the migration and security agendas.

From technical level to multilateralism

On the other hand, the institutionalization of regional cooperation is the third link that completes the economic context. The establishment of technical level committees in a tripartite structure at the Summit enables the committees to begin working on concrete steps. The mechanisms formed by the committees aim to transform cooperation from abstract declarations of intent into action. In addition, the quadripartite format proposed by Libyan Prime Minister Dibeybe, which would include Qatar and involve ministers, demonstrates the intention to broaden the scope of cooperation. Qatar’s financial, humanitarian and logistical contributions are a factor that will increase the feasibility of the projects.

This situation signals that regional coordination will evolve beyond the Mediterranean coastal countries to include the Gulf countries. Furthermore, the political process to be conducted with UN facilitation and the support given to the elections reflect Turkey’s approach to enhancing the role of the UN in the international system. Indeed, in the face of increasing criticism of the UN and the questioning of its role in the international system, Turkey appears to be making a positive effort. Therefore, it can be said that Turkey aims to strengthen the legitimacy of the multilateral system, beyond bilateral and trilateral relations.

Common solutions to common challenges

As the fourth and final link, the migration issue has emerged as one of the most prominent topics of the Summit. Migration is a matter directly related to European Union (EU) security. Italy, as one of the most vulnerable countries on the EU’s southern border, considers limiting migration flows a vital priority.

Meanwhile, Turkey has long been implementing joint projects with Europe to combat irregular migration and human trafficking. Libya, as the main departure point for migration routes, is at the center of this triangle. The Summit was expected to discuss action plans to combat human trafficking networks, prevent irregular movements, and support Libya in managing migration pressures. The important point here is that migration is being addressed both as a security issue and as an economic and humanitarian matter. Italian Prime Minister Meloni’s desire to transfer the cooperation experience with Turkey, which she described as ‘excellent results,’ to Libya can be seen as a sign that the EU will also be indirectly involved in this process.

This context also serves as a reminder that Turkey is an integral part of EU security. Ankara’s role has the potential to counteract the influence of policies within the EU that prioritize the narrow interests of Greece and the Republic of Cyprus. Thus, migration can be seen not only as a crisis issue but also as a basis for establishing a new security architecture between Turkey and Europe.

T

he number of asylum applications to the European Union and associated countries fell by 23 percent in the first half of 2025, driven primarily by a dramatic reduction in applications from Syrians following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. The figures released Monday by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), mark one of the steepest mid-year declines in recent years and signal a significant shift in the continent’s migration dynamics.

According to the EUAA, overall asylum requests across the EU’s 27 member states, along with Switzerland and Norway (collectively referred to as the EU+), totaled 399,000 applications between January and June 2025. This represents a marked decrease compared to the same period in 2024, when the bloc recorded over 518,000 applications.

Sharp drop in Syrian asylum seekers

The most striking trend in the report is the sharp fall in applications from Syrians, who for much of the past decade constituted the largest group of asylum seekers in Europe. In May 2025, only 3,100 Syrians applied for asylum, down from around 16,000 in October 2024—a nearly fivefold decrease over just seven months.

“Monthly Syrian asylum applications fell drastically, reflecting changing conditions within Syria rather than policy shifts in the EU,” the EUAA said. “This downturn, the like of which has not been seen since the initial wave of COVID-19, is likely not due to any asylum policy changes in the EU+.”

The fall coincides with profound political changes in Syria following the ouster of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. The interim government, now led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, has launched a platform focused on stability and reconstruction to encourage displaced Syrians to return home.

Return migration to Syria accelerates

The new leadership has faced ongoing challenges, including Israeli military strikes, but international agencies report a surge in return migration. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that as of mid-May 2025, over 500,000 Syrians have crossed back into the country.

At the height of Syria’s civil war, millions of people fled the country, with neighboring states like Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan absorbing the bulk of refugees, while over a million made their way to Europe. The recent trend suggests a gradual reversal of that exodus, though humanitarian organizations caution that conditions in parts of Syria remain precarious.

Venezuela becomes top source of asylum applications

With the decline in Syrian requests, Venezuelans have now become the largest group of asylum seekers in the EU+, surpassing both Afghans and Syrians. The report attributes this surge to a combination of factors, including the severe economic and political crisis in Venezuela and evolving United States immigration policies that may have shifted migration routes toward Europe.

Afghanistan remained the second-largest source country for asylum seekers, continuing a trend of high migration flows linked to instability and repression following the Taliban’s return to power.

Shifting destinations: Germany loses top spot

The EUAA report also notes a shift in the most popular destinations for asylum seekers. Germany, which had long been the leading destination during the peak years of the Syrian and Afghan migration crises, received fewer applications in early 2025 than Spain, Italy, and France.

This shift reflects changing migration networks, evolving border policies, and in some cases, the secondary movement of asylum seekers within Europe after their initial entry.

The overall decline in asylum applications is likely to be welcomed by governments across the EU that have faced sustained domestic pressure over migration levels in recent years. However, the drop is not attributed to stricter border enforcement or new asylum regulations, according to the EUAA.

Instead, the fall appears closely tied to developments in origin countries, particularly Syria, where the end of Assad’s rule has temporarily altered the calculus for many displaced people. Analysts caution, however, that the situation remains fluid and that migration flows could rise again if political or security conditions deteriorate.

T

he European Union is at a crossroads: it is struggling to deal with vital issues such as the Russian threat and the energy crisis, and trying to build a Europe that is more independent of the U.S. through greater cooperation with its neighbors. In 2024, Europe faces a busy agenda, including Russia’s war against Ukraine, Trump’s possible return as U.S. president, and EU parliamentary elections.

As we leave 2023 behind, the shattering events of the past period are challenging the European Union (EU) and all political actors. While the EU has been busy implementing its twin transformation agendas of the green consensus and digitalization, it has had to confront a changing geopolitical environment, first with the COVID-19 crisis, and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the growing energy crisis.

All these factors have led the EU to focus on urgent action. While Europe appeared more united at the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, the protracted war has led to the emergence of divergent voices. Finally, Israel’s response to Hamas’s attacks started badly and got worse.

The Russia-Ukraine war and the EU enlargement process

The 27 member states of the European Union have repeatedly expressed their commitment to providing Ukraine with all necessary assistance to defend its territory, fearing that a potential Russian victory could threaten the security of Europe as a whole. But as the war has dragged on, the spirit of solidarity and determination in Europe has waned. Decisions on providing financial aid to Ukraine are becoming increasingly difficult within the EU. The strategy of leaving it up to Kyiv to decide whether or not to open negotiations with Russia could be revisited in 2024.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has stated, “Our goal is a just and lasting peace, not a frozen conflict. The best way to bring stability and prosperity to Ukraine is EU membership. Europe can be the solution for a resurgent Ukraine.”

Von der Leyen’s comments were seen by many member states as premature and a step too far. Full membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova are due to start in 2024. Possible EU membership for war-torn Ukraine would be extremely costly for the Union. For this reason, even Poland and the Baltic states, two of Ukraine’s biggest political supporters, are hesitant and uneasy about opening negotiations with Kyiv: Ukraine’s accession to the EU would mean that member states would become Brussels’s paymasters rather than Brussels’s recipients. EU officials are trying to reassure nervous members that negotiations are just the beginning and that full membership could be years, if not decades, away.

The countries of the Western Balkans, some of which have been waiting at the EU’s doorstep for almost 20 years and all of which want to join, are watching with suspicion as Ukraine and Moldova try to become full members at record speed. Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia are expected to be given a concrete date for full membership, partly to reduce Russian and Chinese influence. Prospects are less rosy for Serbia and Kosovo, where ethnic conflicts are holding back progress.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the other hand, is only slowly shedding its image as a dysfunctional state. Its biggest obstacle will be the potential struggle between Bosnian Serbs and other ethnic groups, provoked by Russia.

Proceedings against these two countries for breaches of the rule of law have stalled. Hungary’s anti-EU prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is likely to remain in power in 2024. There is hope for Poland, however, with former EU Council president and pro-European liberal Donald Tusk taking power in Warsaw.

When eight Central and Eastern European countries, Malta, and the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU 20 years ago, Brussels reluctantly adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, which is still in force and establishes the basis for the Union’s internal order (functioning as a form of constitution). The debate on updating this treaty will be much more relevant in 2024.

Meanwhile, EU citizens are far removed from these discussions. According to the Eurobarometer survey, 60% of EU citizens complain that they do not have enough influence on decisions taken in Brussels, yet they are generally optimistic about the future of the EU. Surprisingly, France is the least optimistic, given that it is one of the founding countries of the Union. The optimism rate there is less than 50%. The most optimistic citizens are the Danes, with 86%. In Germany, 58% are optimistic about the development of the EU in 2024.

Regional and global challenges

Europe’s response to the Gaza crisis started badly and got worse. The war in Ukraine gave the EU an opportunity to gain some geopolitical prominence. In the face of the war, the Union produced a number of policies, such as paying for arms to be sent in response to Russian aggression. But it failed to show the same unity and resolve when it tried to project a strong EU in response to the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Some European countries, notably Ursula von der Leyen’s Germany, instinctively sided with Israel and emphasized its right to defend itself. But others, such as Spain and Ireland, are more concerned with the plight of the Palestinians, warning of a humanitarian catastrophe. While Ukraine unites the continent, the Israeli conflict has the potential to divide it.

These developments undermine von der Leyen, who has been the face of a stronger and more geopolitical Europe since the Russo-Ukrainian war. The EU’s and von der Leyen’s influence extended beyond Ukraine. In a speech in March 2023, von der Leyen called for “de-risking” rather than “decoupling” economic relations with China, setting a new tone in relations with that country; she also has worked closely with the United States. New buzzwords such as “strategic autonomy” and “Team Europe” suggested that the bloc would play a full role in geopolitics as a third power in a bipolar world.

In terms of relations with the United States, the return of Donald Trump to the White House as president, despite the lawsuits against him, could mean the beginning of difficult times not only for the EU but also for NATO. Ukraine’s most important ally in terms of support, deterrence against Russia, and trade could be left out in the cold. If Trump becomes president again, Brussels would be forced to take over much of the military aid to Ukraine to avoid offending the unpredictable U.S. politician.

The German-American Chamber of Commerce predicts that Trump could punish Europe with high tariffs if he wins the presidency. In such a case, the EU would also have to raise tariffs and other fees against the U.S. This would likely trigger a new trade war, which would mean lower U.S.-European trade volumes and slower economic growth.

The worst-case scenario, say foreign policy experts in Brussels, is that if Trump worsens relations with China, the main trading partner of many European countries, the world could be set on an even more unstable path than it already is.

European elections in 2024 and possible scenarios

There will be nine parliamentary elections in Europe in 2024, most of which are expected to result in either a change of government or significant policy shifts in the countries concerned. Political fragmentation is therefore likely to become even more pronounced in Europe in 2024. Stable majorities for governments will be harder to come by, and countries governed by coalitions are likely to have to rely on multi-party agreements, further fueling political fragmentation across Europe.

Challenges such as the existence of a minority government in France, growing instability and infighting in Germany and Austria, the recent collapse of the coalition and election victory of the far-right Wilders in the Netherlands, and the reliance on small hardline parties in Spain will continue to constrain policymaking.

Growing discontent with the political establishment in general means that mainstream parties are also shifting towards more radical policies espoused by the far right and far left, especially on migration. In Austria, in particular, the far right is likely to enter government after the September 2024 elections, potentially becoming the largest party. In Portugal, early elections have been called for March 2024 after the fall of the government in November 2023. Polls suggest that the right-wing bloc, backed by the far-right Chega (Enough!) party, has a good chance of forming the next government in the country.

A

s the world is witnessing blatant atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, it also bore witness to hundreds of displaced Rohingya children, women, and men being returned to sea just hours after disembarking from a boat in Aceh, Indonesia on December 27. It is widely known that the Rohingya are victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. In a new escalation in 2017, 6,700 were killed while 740,000 were displaced.

The local population in Aceh is becoming increasingly weary of the burden of hosting refugees. According to media reports and records from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Aceh has received more than 4,000 Rohingya since 2008. A surge in the number of arrivals was recorded during the pandemic in 2020-2022, reaching 1,155 people.

The influx of refugees from Myanmar to Indonesia has constantly increased in 2023. Since February 2023, MFA records show an increase of the number of refugees from Myanmar to Indonesia. The number has reached almost 2,000 refugees, as November and December 2023 marked the peak of arrivals with 1,534 Rohingya making their way to Indonesia. As of January 2024, there are already 170 new arrivals.

The Rohingya refugee influx over the past two months was not the only factor contributing to hundreds of students swarming the refugee shelter in the capital Banda Aceh on December 27. This led to the hasty military-backed expulsion of hundreds of Rohingya back to the sea. The complexity of the problem lies in the geopolitical buck-passing solutions that promote an anti-migrant atmosphere and narratives of refugees posing a national threat to Indonesia in the future. The problem is intensified by accumulated obscure government policies, the ineffectiveness of humanitarian organizations’ capacity programs, misinformation and propaganda on the internet, and the insecurities of higher-ups about the increasing cases of illegal human trafficking.

Coercion and mobilization

Many Acehnese condemned the action and suspected a systematic choreography. In a telephone conversation, local residents expressed their disappointment. “It has never been seen before (that) students’ anarchic protest would be able to convince the military to push the refugees back into the sea,” said a local resident in Banda Aceh who chose to keep his identity secret. “It seemed that only this morning they had the chance to put on green attire to chase the refugees out,” said another villager in an angry, cynical tone, indicating the use of university green attire to symbolize the force behind the act. Although the students have apologized, the damage has been done and the message of rejection has been sent.

An investigation by the state was launched a few days after the incident. It shows a series of efforts to systematically mobilize masses for expulsion, involving military personnel from Aceh. The students were promised a sum of 100-200 million rupiah ($6,500 to $13,000) for holding a demonstration against the Rohingya. No suspects have been named, other than the leader of the student demonstration. Scholars have suggested a pattern of top-down strategic anti-migration missions.

The use of coercion and money has exposed not only the accumulation of prejudices within the Acehnese people but also Indonesians at large. Strong changes were particularly clear in 2021 and 2022, where fear and hatred were manufactured through social media. Indonesians and Acehnese spread false information about the future plans of the Rohingya once their status improved. Such claims included, that those arriving in Aceh would steal land?, comparable to “Israel’s theft of Palestinian land”; that sharing the burden of state finances would displace the priority of the natives; that the Rohingya’ demand for a free and sustainable life with secure jobs and protection; the “lack of a culture of cleanness”  among the Rohingya; and allegations of involvement in rape cases, drug abuse, and “being ungrateful.”

The South China Morning Post interviewed the protesters whose response was in sync with the spread of false information online. The Ministry of Communication and Information and the NGO Masyarakat Anti Fitnah Indonesia or Anti-defamation Society verified that the above accusations are false and exaggerated.

Social media, including several unverified accounts on YouTube, have spread misinformation by defaming powerful elites in Indonesia as encouraging the expulsion. The fake news had been circulating on social media for months before the incident. The untimely and insensitive public statement by elite society members about Indonesia being a non-signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and therefore deserving leeway in the blame game was greatly influential.

On December 20, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lalu Muhammad Iqbal claimed that Indonesia’s non-signatory status exempted the country from any responsibility for the lives of the Rohingya. He also blamed the illegal human trafficking in Indonesian waters and demanded the signatory countries of the 1951 Convention take responsibility.

Although emphasizing the moral burden of the plight of the Rohingya, Iqbal’s statement led to condemnation from various parties and helped a hoax gain momentum as his statement partly played a role in the student march on December 27.

Triggered buck-passing

Looking at the geopolitical buck-passing attitude towards the Rohingya in recent years, perhaps part of Iqbal’s statement could be applauded or at least arise some empathy. His stance was triggered by the increasing phenomenon of illegal human trafficking and the high probability that Bangladesh organizes the remigration of Rohingya refugees out of its country to evade responsibility.

This assumption is corroborated by a recent investigation, published on December 15, based on the testimonies of several arrested suspects. It reveals that the Bangladesh Security Camp and its navy captain were involved in human trafficking. They lured the Rohingya with promises of a better life and a safe destination with a fee ranging from 3 to 15 million rupiah ($193 to $965) per person. The money was then used to purchase boat engines, fuel, and food supplies for the journey. The profit was shared between the ship’s captain and the boat crew in Bangladesh’s Cox Bazaar. Prior to departure, the refugees’ names were listed on a paper with country destinations that included Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Due to Indonesia’s weak maritime security, most of the refugees landed and sheltered in Aceh. There several cases of runaways were reported and linked to trafficking to various areas with better economic prospects in Sumatra, such as Tanjung Balai in North Sumatra, Dumai, and Riau. The Indonesian traffickers demanded 5-10 million rupiah ($321 to $643) for each refugee. Since 2015, there have been 23 cases related to human trafficking. Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs of Indonesia Mahfud MD has stated that people from the country are involved in the illegal Rohingya human trafficking around Indonesia.

The situation of the Rohingya in undeniably a complex and multidimensional problem. However, Indonesia holds a moral responsibility to actively engage in humanitarian rescue efforts, to prevent further anti-refugee discourse in social media, and to improve its maritime security through non-traditional security measures.

I

n a landmark move after protracted deliberations, European Union negotiators have announced a significant breakthrough in reforming the bloc’s dated asylum system. The preliminary agreement, achieved following intense overnight discussions on December 20, 2023, sets the stage for a comprehensive overhaul of the EU’s migration policy framework.

As confirmed by the EU’s Spanish presidency, envoys from the member states, the European Parliament, and the European Commission, have concurred on the principal political aspects of the new Pact on Asylum and Migration. This accord arrives nearly three years after the pact’s introduction in September 2020, a period when the EU grappled with an unprecedented influx of refugees, primarily from conflict zones in Syria and Iraq.

The original asylum regulations had buckled under the strain of over a million undocumented arrivals in 2015, necessitating a robust response. However, progress on the new pact stalled as member countries contended over the distribution of responsibilities for processing migrants and the extent of mandatory solidarity among states.

Key points of consensus

Key points of consensus have now been reportedly reached on critical issues, including the initial screening of undocumented migrants, the application of biometric data, criteria for determining responsible EU countries for asylum claims, and the associated procedural mechanisms.

Amid fading hopes for reform, the EU had increasingly relied on external agreements to manage migration flows, exemplified by a controversial arrangement with Tunisia. Critics have accused such deals of outsourcing the bloc’s migration challenges at the expense of humanitarian considerations.

With the EU elections looming from June 6-9, the pressure is on to finalize the agreement. To implement the plan, officials and legislators emphasize that accord on all ten segments of the pact must be reached by February. This development represents a critical step toward a collective European approach to migration and asylum, balancing responsibility sharing and solidarity among member states.

Hungary and Poland opposition

In the year leading up to November 2023, European authorities have noted 255,332 irregular migrant arrivals, indicating a pressing need for coherent migration management. “The pact needs to be finalized before the European electorate casts their ballots,” insisted Margaritis Schinas, the European Commission’s Vice President, labeling the recent deal as the long-awaited keystone in the EU’s migration and asylum reform efforts.

The perilous journey across the Mediterranean has claimed the lives of countless refugees, many escaping the ravages of war and poverty. Such tragedies underscore the lethal consequences of Europe’s stringent immigration policies, increasingly scrutinized by advocates of human rights.

Amidst the backdrop of such humanitarian crises, right-wing factions in nations like Italy, Hungary, Poland, and Germany are amplifying their calls for more stringent immigration controls, placing the asylum system under the microscope as a central tenet of their political agenda.

Hungary and Poland, both of which have expressed opposition to the recent agreement, are next in line to assume the EU presidency following the impending elections. Despite their resistance, the pact was endorsed by a majority.

Source: The Associated Press and Aljazeera English

T

he Cypriot government is calling on the European Union to reevaluate the safety of parts of Syria for the potential repatriation of refugees, as the Mediterranean island nation grapples with a record number of Syrian arrivals. Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou expressed the urgency of this reassessment in an interview with Reuters, highlighting the island’s growing concerns over its capacity to handle the influx.

Cyprus, the easternmost outpost of the EU, has become increasingly strained as conflicts in the Middle East intensify, leading to a surge in refugees and asylum-seekers. “We have five times more migrants than any other frontline member state,” Ioannou stated, noting that the majority of these migrants are from Syria.

The Cypriot foreign ministry is set to formally raise this issue with Brussels. The discussions would include the status of certain regions in Syria, particularly Damascus and Tartous, which a February report by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) assessed as having “no real risk for a civilian to be personally affected by indiscriminate violence.”

1,043 arrivals by boat in October alone

More than 5 million people have fled Syria during over a decade of civil war, primarily to Lebanon and Turkey. Despite a current stalemate in the conflict with President Bashar al-Assad’s forces controlling most of the country, refugees continue to leave. Cyprus has seen a marked increase in Syrian refugees, with 1,043 arrivals by boat in October alone, a three-fold increase from the previous year.

The island has also been a key point for migrants from Africa, especially since 2019, with many entering the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and being smuggled into the Greek Cypriot south. Although tightened security along the 180-km “green line” has reduced overall arrivals, the authorities remain concerned about potential new routes.

Offering Lebanon technical assistance

Ioannou mentioned that Cyprus is in close contact with Lebanon, which has intercepted numerous vessels. Cyprus has offered Lebanon technical assistance and joint patrols, and is advocating for more direct EU assistance to Lebanon. Additionally, Ioannou suggested the possibility of establishing “safe zones” outside the EU for processing asylum requests, similar to a plan Italy announced for centers in Albania.

The call from Cyprus comes as the United Nations refugee chief warns of potential further displacement in the region due to the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, as stated in a forum in Geneva.

The European Commission has not yet responded to requests for comment on this developing situation. Cyprus’s call for an EU rethink on Syria migration underscores the complex challenges faced by frontline states in managing refugee crises and balancing humanitarian responsibilities with national capacities.

Source: Reuters

I

n a sobering analysis of global humanitarian needs, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has released its 2024 Emergency Watchlist, pinpointing the top 10 crises that demand immediate international attention. The report, which draws on extensive quantitative and qualitative research, reveals that these crises are predominantly concentrated in countries housing only 10% of the global population but representing a staggering 86% of those in dire humanitarian need.

Sudan tops the list with its intensifying conflict causing widespread displacement and a collapsing healthcare system. The fighting, particularly severe in Khartoum and Darfur, has more than doubled the number of people in need of humanitarian support within a year.

The oPt, especially Gaza, is enduring catastrophic consequences due to ongoing conflicts. The destruction of vital infrastructure has left the healthcare system on the verge of collapse, further exacerbating the humanitarian emergency.

Since its independence, South Sudan has grappled with insecurity. The current economic crisis and increased flooding have put an enormous strain on food production, affecting millions.

Burkina Faso: Escalating Violence

In Burkina Faso, violence from armed groups has grown, significantly impacting the population with increasing humanitarian needs due to limited access to basic services and goods.

The military takeover in Myanmar has led to widespread conflict, displacing over 2 million people and severely impacting civilian lives and access to humanitarian aid.

The recent withdrawal of U.N. peacekeeping forces in Mali has heightened safety concerns, with increased violence impeding the delivery of aid and vital services.

Repeated climate shocks, including drought and flooding, have devastated Somalia, driving significant humanitarian needs and complicating recovery efforts.

Niger: Coup Consequences

The July 2023 coup in Niger has led to political tensions and economic challenges, severely limiting the country’s ability to provide public services and increasing humanitarian needs.

Ethiopia faces a complex crisis due to consecutive years of drought, multiple conflicts, and persistent inflation, putting many at risk of food insecurity.

Ongoing conflict, political tensions, and climate shocks in the DRC have created one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, with millions in need of assistance.

The IRC’s report emphasizes the disproportionate impact these crises have on global poverty and displacement. It calls for urgent and sustained international action to address these challenges and provide support to those most in need. The organization continues to provide critical assistance in these regions, focusing on emergency health care, shelter, and various support services, while advocating for increased funding and access to ensure effective humanitarian response.

Source: The International Rescue Committee.

I

n response to a recent surge in migrants, Finnish authorities have begun erecting concrete barriers topped with barbed wire at select border crossing points with Russia, officials reported on November 22. Finland has announced the closure of three additional crossings, leaving only the Arctic Salla crossing open for migrants seeking asylum.

This month alone, around 600 migrants, largely from the Middle East and Africa and lacking proper visas and documentation, have entered Finland. This figure marks a significant increase from the few dozen recorded in the previous months. The arrivals include individuals from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Kenya, Morocco, and Somalia.

“We are taking these necessary steps to maintain order and ensure the security of legal border traffic,” stated Tomi Tirkkonen, deputy commander of the Kainuu border guard district.

Suspicions of Russian officials’ involvement

The Finnish government’s recent decision to close four key southeastern border crossings with Russia raised suspicions of Russian officials’ involvement in the migrant influx. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has indicated that further action may be required, leading to the additional closures of the Vartius, Kuusamo, and Salla crossings. As a result, Raja-Jooseppi will stand as the sole Finnish checkpoint accepting asylum applications from Russian arrivals.

Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen expressed concerns over Russia’s potential use of migrants as part of a hybrid warfare strategy against Finland, stating, “We have evidence that Russian border authorities are not just allowing, but actively aiding individuals without proper documentation to reach the border zone.”

Despite Russia’s denial of any foul play, the Finnish ambassador in Moscow was summoned to discuss the closure of the most actively used checkpoints.

Critical levels at the Vartius and Salla checkpoints

The migrant situation has reached critical levels at the Vartius and Salla checkpoints, with daily arrivals ranging from 30 to 70 individuals. Governor of Russia’s northern Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, criticized Finnish authorities for not allowing migrants to cross, labeling the situation a “humanitarian crisis.”

The influx has included young men, families with children, and women, with photos and border guard data highlighting the unusual spike in numbers. The EU border and coast guard agency, Frontex, is set to provide assistance to Finland as it manages the situation.

Finland’s decision to join NATO, a direct response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, is seen by many as the catalyst for Russia’s alleged retaliation in the form of migrant maneuvers. Analysts remain uncertain of Russia’s primary motives behind such actions, as the geopolitical implications continue to unfold.

Source: Associated Press

I

n an unprecedented move, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday October 30, the release of its first-ever global research agenda on health, migration, and displacement. This monumental step aims to address the mounting health needs of a staggering one billion people worldwide who are leaving their homes either by choice or due to force.

Prompted by a series of factors such as ongoing wars, deep-rooted conflicts, burgeoning income inequalities, significant economic shifts, rapid urbanization, and the looming threat of climate change, the global displacement issue has reached an alarming rate. The WHO has underlined the urgent necessity for evidence-based policies that ensure the well-being and protection of this vulnerable demographic, emphasizing that “no one is left behind.”

The new agenda comes after a year-long consultative process, during which the WHO collaborated with over 180 stakeholders from diverse regions and backgrounds. This extensive consultation led to the identification of five research themes that warrant significant investment. Among these are:

1. Scaling up access to vital services and achieving inclusive universal health coverage.
2. Enhancing the responsiveness of health emergency preparedness.
3. Gaining a deeper understanding of health determinants and strategizing effective solutions.
4. Prioritizing under-researched groups among migrants and the forcibly displaced.
5. Innovating collaborations in research to effectively translate findings into policy and practice.

A substantial gap

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed his commitment, stating, “The WHO’s global research agenda on health, migration, and displacement represents a pivotal step in our ongoing efforts. By bridging the knowledge gap on the health needs of the world’s most vulnerable populations, we aim to navigate and address the challenges of a world that is constantly on the move.”

While the magnitude of the challenge is evident, the WHO has indicated that there remains a substantial gap in comprehensive knowledge about best practices to optimally support the health of those in transit. This knowledge deficit not only compromises the well-being of displaced individuals but also hinders progress towards the universal health coverage and the broader Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Jeremy Farrar, WHO’s Chief Scientist, expressed his concern about the current state of global health. “With numerous acute and prolonged crises globally, migration and displacement have become intertwined with global health endeavors. The global research agenda is both an urgent call to action and a reminder to broaden our understanding of the health needs of migrants and the displaced.”

A foundational guide for regional and national research blueprints

In addition to setting the global research direction, the WHO’s agenda will serve as a foundational guide for regional and national research blueprints. The organization has also provided an implementation guide and toolkit within the agenda, designed to support policymakers, civil society, NGOs, and other UN agencies in tailoring the agenda to their specific migration contexts and organizational requirements.

Highlighting the urgency of the issue, an interactive dataset will be incorporated to monitor and evaluate the research funding landscape in the realm of health, migration, and displacement. Preliminary findings suggest that the existing research funding on a global scale is insufficient to address the pressing research gaps identified in the global agenda.

In closing, Dr. Santino Severoni, Director of WHO’s Department of Health and Migration, expressed optimism: “The global research agenda will catalyze specialized knowledge on the health of migrants, refugees, and other displaced groups. By understanding their unique health needs, we can work towards more equitable policies and interventions, pushing forward to achieve the SDGs.”

Sources: WHO, Anadolu Agency and Relifweb

T

he young electorate and first-time voters seem to be shying away from voting centrist, socialist, or even green. The year 2023 could be a year of change as voting for a far-right party appears to be the new “cool” in Europe.

Profiling the young European electorate

Young people in Europe used to be very selective when it came to choosing which party to vote for. In 2019, young Europeans prioritized human rights and democracy, climate change, green energy, and sustainable development. These preferences led to the formation of coalitions between centrist and green blocs.

Accordingly, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy gained their big-tent governments thanks to young voters. These governments’ policies such as lax border controls, generous public spending on social inclusion, and social security were legitimized, reflecting the characteristics of the young European electorate.

However, recent polls in Germany and Austria have shown the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) in leading positions. Young Austrian and German voters seem to favor such far-right options. At the same time, 23% of young Italians helped the far-right Brotherhood of Italy secure the government in 2022. Nordic voters also had their moment of truth: 22% of young Swedes went to the polls to vote for a right-wing populist party.

Economic concerns leading young voters to the far right

The energy crisis in Europe was the first event to prompt a change in electoral preferences. As a consequence of European sanctions against Russia, gas prices rose drastically. By the last quarter of 2022, gas prices in Western Europe had risen by between 450% and 750%. European households started to struggle to cover the cost of the most crucial utilities. In 2022, the quarterly gas bill of an average Italian household cost up to 52,000 euros.

The economy has been the main drive for the shift to the far right. According to the European Policy Center, transformation processes related to economy, migration, and energy are setting the ground for the decline of mainstream parties. Right-wing populist leaders incorporate price changes in their political discourse. Matteo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, asked his voters at a rally why young Europeans should pay the price of a pointless sanction against Russia when Russian oligarchs are not suffering.

But, it is unwise to think that economic hardship has led the youth directly to the far right. Right-wing parties often have cliques and factions within themselves. Even the most far-right AfD has a moderate faction, the Alternative Mitte (“Alternative Midpoint” in German), which prioritizes economic inequality over cultural issues. This moderate faction became the main attraction for young German voters, especially in the eastern provinces.

Young people in the east voiced their concerns over the lack of social infrastructure as they struggle to find work and are forced to move west. Recent polls confirm this view with 47% of AfD voters supporting their party only to protest against the ruling coalition on economic issues.

Greek youth feel forced to vote for right-wing popularism

Young voters seem to have a vivid memory of past events. In voting for the 2023 parliamentary elections, young Greeks remembered the catastrophic debt crisis: they harshly punished the centrist Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the socialist Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) for the crisis, while 33% of young Greeks rewarded the New Democracy party for its successful maneuvers in rescuing the country from the crisis. New Democracy’s promises of tax cuts also swayed young voters.

Did this very same electorate ignore New Democracy’s mistreatment of migrants? Just two weeks before the election, hundreds of migrants died in the Ionian Sea. Despite such tragedies, young voters broke a record by making New Democracy the strongest right-wing populist party in Europe with a solid 40% of national votes. Even those who belong to anarchist youth subgroups decided to vote for the party for financial stability.

The future of young far-right voters in Europe

Bill Clinton’s famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” managed to find its way into European politics. The economy has indeed played a role in shaping the preferences of Europe’s youth.  This can also be interpreted as good news: young voters are not ideologically attached to right-wing populism.

But poverty and war have put Europe’s youth between Scylla and Charybdis, making them have to choose between two evils: poverty and populism. The result has been that populism has been perceived as the lesser evil.

A

s a result of the general elections held in Greece on June 25, eight parties entered the parliament. The New Democracy (ND) party, which won 158 parliamentary seats with 40.55% of the vote, won the majority in the 300-seat parliament. The Radical Left Alliance (SYRIZA), which won 48 parliamentary seats with 17.84% of the vote, is back in the main opposition, while its center-left rival PASOK won 32 seats with 11.85% of the vote. Among the other parties that passed the 3% electoral threshold, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) won the right to be represented in the parliament with 20 MPs, Spartans with 12 MPs, Greek Solution (EL) with 12 MPs, Democratic Patriotic Movement – Victory with 10 MPs, and Course of Freedom (PE) with 8 MPs.

The result shows that in the coming period there will be a divided opposition in the parliament against a strong government. Due to the rivalry and differences of opinion among the opposition parties, it will be much more difficult for them to define a common position against the policies of the government than in the past. This situation will allow the second Mitsotakis government to act more decisively and boldly. The weakening of the left and the rise of the far right in Greek politics are also expected to affect the political dynamics of the new period.

The Decline of Left Politics

The June 25 elections resulted in a right-dominated parliamentary arithmetic in Greece. It was the first time since the 1974 elections following the military regime that right-wing parties won so many seats and left-wing parties so few. Considering that the radical left came to power only eight years ago, Greek politics has undergone a rapid and sharp transformation.

Greece’s debt crisis in 2009 led to the imposition of strict austerity measures under EU supervision. SYRIZA, which promised to solve people’s economic problems with radical steps, was seen as a savior in this period and a leftist party outside the mainstream came to power for the first time in the 2015 elections. SYRIZA’s success was also attributed to the fact that its leader Alexis Tsipras was young, dynamic, and politically untainted.

However, Tsipras’s adoption of a soft transition during his term in office, his agreement with the European troika, and the continuation of austerity measures disappointed SYRIZA voters and caused many members with radical views to break away from the party. SYRIZA, thus, became a mainstream center-left party.

SYRIZA, which has been in the main opposition since 2019, stood against the economic and social policies implemented under the ND government and promised to implement the principles of the welfare state to the fullest if it came back to power. In the run-up to the 2023 elections, Tsipras emphasized his party’s “progressive” credentials and included elements such as improving wages, reducing indirect taxes, and greater state responsibility in areas such as education, health, and housing in his election program.

Despite all this, he failed to evoke the same excitement in the electorate as in 2015. While the disappointment of Tsipras’s tenure has a partial share in this, the main problem stems from SYRIZA’s inability to develop a holistic and realistic alternative to ND’s pro-Western neoliberal policies that combine geopolitical and economic goals. No matter how valuable SYRIZA’s program based on social justice, humanitarian values, and multilateral foreign policy may be in principle, it cannot offer a package that can provide a short-term solution to the economic problems and geopolitical risks facing Greece. This is more a matter of conjunctural realities—in other words, the spirit of the times—than SYRIZA itself.

There is fierce competition among left-wing parties to fill the vacuum left by SYRIZA’s decline. The Course of Freedom (PE) party, led by Zoe Konstantopoulou, a former SYRIZA member, managed to enter the parliament with a program close to the radical views that SYRIZA advocated before it came to power. The idealistic goals of the European Realistic Disobedience Front or MeRa25, the party of Yanis Varoufakis, another former SYRIZA member, to restructure the whole of Europe are not seen as realistic by the Greek public under the current circumstances. On the other hand, the KKE, representing the revolutionary left, is far away from all other parties in terms of its principles and goals.

While these relatively small parties are not expected to have a serious impact on politics, PASOK has become a strong alternative for the leadership of the left. PASOK has adopted a balanced line between ND and SYRIZA in economic policies, while in foreign policy it has adopted almost the same stance as ND in terms of relations with the West and its approach to the problems with Turkey. PASOK, which has shifted from the left to the center, aims to be a mass party alternative to ND as it used to be.

However, ND, which has expanded its base under the leadership of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and has recruited some former PASOK members, has gained a very strong position in central politics. If SYRIZA fails to renew itself, PASOK could once again take the leadership of the center-left and become the second-largest party in the country.

Of the three small right-wing parties that entered parliament in the last elections, the Spartans party is the most notable in that it includes former Golden Dawn members and received more votes than the others. As a result of the ban on the National Party-Hellenes, led by former Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris, its candidates participated in the June 25 elections from the lists of an unnamed nationalist party called “Spartans.” In this way, the far right of the Golden Dawn line re-entered parliament after a four-year absence. Kasidiaris, who is still in prison, has signaled that he will lead a fierce opposition in parliament after the elections. However, given the recent sensitivity of the judiciary to far-right activities, the party may face judicial investigations if it pushes the boundaries of legitimate politics.

The other two right-wing parties in parliament, Greek Solution (EL) and Victory, have so far not shown any aggressive behavior, but have very strong nationalist conservative views. Since the 2019 parliamentary elections, EL’s leader Kyriakos Velopoulos has previously called for the death penalty for serious crimes and the laying of mines on the border to counter threats from Turkey and the influx of migrants. The Victory party, founded in 2019 under the leadership of religious studies teacher Dimitris Natsios, entered the parliament for the first time with a surprise vote thanks to the support it received especially from the church and monastic circles. Defining his party in terms of Greek Orthodoxy, chairman Natsios states that they aim to achieve unity in the country through the reconstruction of religious consciousness.

The right-wing parties advocate common themes such as anti-immigration, anti-vaccination, protection of national identity, and family structure. Paying special attention to disputes with neighboring countries, these parties oppose the Prespa Agreement resolving the Macedonian name dispute and demand rights for the Greek minority in southern Albania. Regarding the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, and Cyprus, they argue that Greece should not back down from national stances and work for international sanctions against Turkey. They also agree that Turkish identity in Western Thrace should never be tolerated, and they argue that relations with the Western world should be determined according to national interests and that Greece should cooperate with countries outside the Euro-Atlantic alliance when necessary.

Although it is inevitable that right-wing parties will spark various debates over these and similar views in the coming period, their influence on political decisions and practices is expected to remain limited as they are not strong enough to set the agenda. Especially in the current economic and geopolitical conditions, it is unlikely that the ND government will deviate from the Euro-Atlantic line.

Moreover, given the EU’s increased emphasis on enlargement in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war, it is unlikely that Greece will take any action that would hinder the membership perspectives of North Macedonia and Albania.

Nevertheless, the fact that left-wing parties are weaker than in the past and are competing among themselves can be considered a handicap in terms of balancing far-right tendencies. Demands from the far right on issues directly related to national identity and interests, such as anti-immigration, minority rights, and relations with Turkey, could put pressure on the government.

O

n Saturday, April 15, the residents of Sudan’s capital Khartoum woke up to sounds of gun fire as violent clashes erupted between the national army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The surreal scenes of fighter jets flying over Khartoum and bombing RSF positions, and tanks rolling in the streets while dark plumes of smoke covered the city captivated the global news and social media platforms. How did the Sudanese peoples’ quest for a transition to a civilian democracy beget deadly clashes in Khartoum and a civil war that could engulf the whole country?

Since February, political tensions have been rising in the country between General Abdel Fatah al-Burhan, the county’s president and chairman of the Transitional Sovereign Council (TSC), and his deputy General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, commonly referred to as “Hemedti.” Hemedti is the leader of the RSF, a paramilitary unit of approximately 80,000 heavily armed and pickup truck-riding militiamen that have bases all across the country. Since the ouster of former president Omar al-Bashir in 2019, the RSF and its leader, Hemedti, have become a consequential political and security force to be reckoned with in Sudan’s political sphere.

After the Nile Spring revolution that ousted al-Bashir, the army had to “tame” and accommodate the RSF and its leadership by offering Hemedti the deputy leadership of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) in post al-Bashir Sudan. In the last decade, the RSF was a political lifeline to al-Bashir’s regime, acting like the regime’s Praetorian Guard against any threats from within the military establishment and as an efficient power against rebels in the frontier Darfur region.

Four years after the Nile Spring revolution, what has become of Sudan’s quest for a civilian democratic rule? Will Burhan and Hemedti come to their senses and seek a political truce that will save Sudan from a long civil war and state collapse? To understand the genesis of the current violence, one has to grasp Sudan’s fragile and dispersed security apparatus; the relationship between the military establishment and politics; and the new actors and elites from the margins, such as the RSF and Hemedti, who have “tasted” power and wealth in the capital. When al-Bashir left, the military, security, and economic crony system he held together for three decades came crumbling down. The current violence between the SAF and RSF is one such spatter from a bigger crumbling, metastasizing, and re-ordering of the system al-Bashir left behind.

Democracy aborted

Sudan’s attempted transition to a democratic civilian rule has been a near-impossible herculean task. After three decades of al-Bashir’s military rule and a long history of coup d’états and military dictatorships since independence, an abrupt civilian democratic rule was practically unachievable. Although al-Bashir was ousted by a popular uprising of the masses, still the post-Bashir Sudanese politics was dominated and overseen by a military and security establishment that had no stakes in handing over power to a civilian government. Sudan’s military and security establishment has been the “invisible hand” that guided the supposed transition to democracy—and no wonder it has failed, or, even worse, imploded with violence.

The unwillingness of the military and security establishment to hand over power to a civilian government was clear in the coup that ousted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in October 2021. When the transition timeline dictated that the military branch of the TSC was supposed to hand over power to its civilian counterpart, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), instead the TSC ousted Hamdok and created discord amongst the different elements within the FFC. Hence, the military continued to consolidate its power and postponed indefinitely any possibilities of a transition to a civilian rule.

Why should the military and security elites risk losing their powers and interests by handing over government rule to civilians? Sudan is the third-largest producer of gold in Africa, and its military establishment is entangled in this lucrative enterprise. Moreover, to make matters more complicated, the Russian paramilitary group Wagner has joined the illicit mining and exporting of Sudanese gold.

More significantly, there is a new actor on the scene: Hemedti. Hemedti is an outsider to the military and security establishment, but he wields enormous powers and resources, and tilts the levers of power to his interests and advantages. The current war in Sudan is between two factions of the military and security establishment: the entrenched old cadres of the SAF and the newcomers, the RSF—this power struggle between Burhan and Hemedti and their foot-soldiers will either doom or reshape the future of Sudan.

Geopolitical ramifications

Sudan is geostrategically important in the Red Sea and the Sahel region. The current war will impact the region geopolitically and demographically as it will send millions of migrants into the neighboring countries. Egypt will be the most affected. Already hundreds of thousands of migrants have fled to southern Egypt and Cairo, and Sudan’s stability is crucial for Cairo. Moreover, Egypt has historically supported the military regimes in Khartoum. In this conflict, clearly General Burhan and the SAF are their primary interlocutors.

Hemedti is closely linked with the United Arab Emirates. The RSF took part in the Yemen conflict when it sent thousands of soldiers to fight alongside the Saudis and Emiratis in 2015. Nevertheless, Burhan and the SAF establishment also have strong relations with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. All regional powers have a vested interest in seeing a stable Sudanese state, but when push comes to shove, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are skeptical of Burhan since he never decapitated the remnants of the Islamists when al-Bashir was ousted.

Eritrea and Ethiopia are also geopolitically interested in the stability of the Sudanese state. Sudan has always played the balancing factor in the Ethiopia-Egypt Nile water dispute. If this conflict drags out, it could lead to a hydro-geopolitical conflict that affects the whole region. More significantly, South Sudan will be the most affected nation in this conflict. All the oil from Juba passes through South Sudan and is refined and exported from the Red Sea port.

Geographically, Sudan is a big country with a lot of oil and mineral resources. In the event that this conflict is protracted, there is the possibility of the mushrooming of diverse rebel groups and militias in the country and the involvement of neighboring countries in the conflict. Sudan could be the next Democratic Republic of the Congo, but our prayers are that peace prevails soon.

A

nti-migrant racism in North Africa was thought to be a taboo, but in reality it never was. Racism against African migrants, coupled with unabashed anti-Black xenophobia, is alive and kicking in North Africa. Tunisian President Kais Saied’s recent comments on February 21 about sub-Saharan migrants surely shocked many people. Saied labelled migrants as “hordes” and a “demographic threat” to his country. Even more, Saied called for “the need to put a rapid end to this immigration,” which, to his view, has become a source of “violence, crime and unacceptable acts.”

For a country like Tunisia, a generator of migrants fleeing to find a better life in Europe, Saied’s speech may seem out of place and contradictory. Doesn’t the European far right, which applauded Saied’s speech, say the same about Muslim migrants?

President Saied’s invective is neither unprecedented nor isolated in the larger geographical area, the Maghreb. From Morocco to Libya, passing through Mauritania, Algeria and, of course, Tunisia, hateful allegations are not only the prerogative of what some people there call the “little people” to whom we could add the “uncultured” or the “intolerant.” In the upper echelons, at the highest level of the Maghreb states, the same ideas circulate.

For this discourse is not new. Since the Maghreb became the exit door for migrants from Africa to reach the fabled El Dorado, Europe, this immense territory has been transformed into a huge waiting room for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of sub-Saharan migrants unable to reach the European coast. A waiting room that has turned into an open-air prison over time. Especially since, to curb this migration flow, the European Union outsourced its borders and entrusted their guarding to the Maghreb states by rewarding them financially, diplomatically, or both.

A migrant mass

The direct consequence of this strong policy of containment has been the creation of a migrant mass that has settled permanently in the Maghreb and lives on the fringes of society, waiting for a passage to Europe. It has also caused inevitable impoverishment and generated the phenomenon of criminalization that no one questions, especially not the local population in contact with migrants.

It is important to understand that as long as migrants were only crossing the territory, they were tolerated. It was only when they were prevented from doing so that their presence began to pose a problem and the old demon of racism resurfaced.

Over the past twenty years, many serious and sometimes bloody incidents have taken place against migrants in North Africa, without being properly reported by the press. Police raids followed by robberies and humiliations, assaults, lynching organized by neighborhood lords or angry citizens, and even rapes have targeted this vulnerable population.

Racism is as old as the world and knows no borders. The Maghrebi expressions for Black people, “âzzi” (black), “kahlouche” (negro), “âbid” (slave), or “oussif” (slave, servant), which have been heard with force recently, are not new and are not a relic of colonialism. As far back as the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun, a historian of Arab descent born in Tunis, wrote that “the only peoples who accept slavery are the negroes, because of their lower degree of humanity, their place being closer to that of the animal.”

Legacy of French colonization

These expressions are therefore the fruit of a mentality that predates the French colonization of Algeria and Mauritania, the French protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco, and the Italian occupation of Libya. What has changed is the violence of words and actions.

In 2012, the Moroccan weekly Maroc Hebdo devoted an entire dossier to the “Black Peril,” attacking without embellishment those who “live by begging, engage in drug trafficking and prostitution” and “pose a human and security problem for the country.” On Moroccan social media, there are regular calls for the expulsion of African migrants, the closure of borders, and the banning of mixed marriages in order to preserve an improbable “purity of the Moroccan race.”

On the other side of the border, in Algeria, a hashtag on Twitter resurfaces from time to time (in Arabic), #NotoAfricansinAlgeria, which immediately sets the world on fire by calling for the hunting down and deportation of migrants. Sometimes, the creators of these hateful messages deliberately confuse Black migrants with Black North African citizens. From the Atlantic Ocean to the Egyptian border, there is a Black Maghrebi population whose ancestors were slaves or settled in North Africa several centuries ago. They are certainly citizens, but they are still considered second-class ones.

A few years ago, in 2016, a Black model of Algerian nationality, Amina Hamouine, had to face an extraordinary campaign of hatred because she had the idea, or the “bad idea” as her detractors would say, of being photographed wearing a Kabyle dress—the Kabyle people are Berbers from the region of Kabylia. This was an unforgivable mistake for those who identify the Kabyle woman from the whiteness of her skin.

Too Black?

Recently, Khadidja Benhamou, an Algerian citizen from Adrar in the south of the country, was deemed “too Black” to wear the crown of Miss Algeria 2019—her skin color did not represent all Algerians, it seems.

But it is not only the “little people” who indulge in these feelings that sociologists and anthropologists call “systemic negrophobia.” Some Algerian leaders do as well. In 2017, five years before the Tunisian president’s remarks, senior officials of Algiers, which has a virulent anti-colonial past, were not kind to migrants either.

Ahmed Ouyahia, an Algerian politician who has been appointed prime minister ten times—an absolute record— and who at the time was head of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s cabinet as a minister of state, described African migrants on the private television station Ennahar TV as “[t]hese illegal foreigners bring[ing] crime, drugs and several other scourges.” At the time, Ouyahia was the secretary general of the National Democratic Rally (RND), one of the two crutches, along with the National Liberation Front (FLN), that support the government in Algeria.

His words were echoed and amplified a few days later by Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelkader Messahel, who identified the arrival of sub-Saharans in the country as a “threat to national security.”

But the ultimate horror was reached again in 2017 in Libya, when footage filmed by CNN journalists revealed to the world the unimaginable in the 21st century: an auction of migrants from Nigeria at a market near Tripoli.

Anti-racism laws

To counter this unfortunate litany of racist acts, Tunisia passed a law in 2018 penalizing racism and established January 23 as the “National Day for the Abolition of Slavery.” However, the 2018 law, historical, innovative, and the first of its kind in the Arab world, was annihilated by the verbal outrage of President Saied on February 21, 2023, when he evoked a “criminal plan prepared at the beginning of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia” and whose objective was to transform the country into an “African-only country” and to remove its “Arab Muslim” identity.

Of course, one can try to nuance this reality by recalling, for example, the decision of the Moroccan authorities to launch campaigns to issue resident permits, such as in 2014, which initially resulted in the regularization of 25,000 undocumented migrants. It can also be argued that, like Tunisia, Algeria adopted a law criminalizing racial discrimination in 2020. But these gestures of goodwill have little impact if they are not followed by campaigns to educate the local population on the need to accept the “other.” Campaigns that television stations refused to broadcast, as was the case in Morocco.

All crises, whether economic or security-based, produce exasperation that ends up finding a scapegoat, and African migrants have become the ideal candidates. They pay for the economic crisis and the criminal behavior of a minority in their own community.

As a scapegoat, they also pay the price for some of the services rendered by the Maghreb states to Europeans: to showcase its status as a paid gendarme of the European Commission, Morocco got carried away by its destructive zeal on June 24, 2022, when it violently curtailed an attempt by several hundred migrants, mostly Sudanese, citizens of a “brotherly Arab” country, to force their way into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Moroccan territory.

EU responsibility

The result—24 dead according to the Moroccan authorities, 37 according to a local association, not counting the missing—has not only tarnished Morocco’s image in Africa but also revealed another problem that is worth studying. In which state in the world, except for the former East Germany and the now defunct Berlin Wall and migrants escaping war to Greece and Italy, are dozens of people killed to prevent them from leaving a country that is not theirs to seek refuge elsewhere?

A tragedy that ended with a congratulatory gesture worthy of the former East Germany, as the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, praised the brutal intervention of the Moroccan police force.

Finally, the European Union’s migration policy, which consists of preventing human beings from moving freely, by force if necessary, has helped this local outbreak of racism and intolerance, and dynamited several principles, some of them religious, that were thought to be immutable.

Pan-Africanism, the egalitarian and anti-slavery utopia propagated in most of the post-independence Maghreb countries, especially Algeria, has come to an end. The myth introduced by these countries of an integrating Islam that makes no distinction between a white and a Black person has been shattered. Despite many migrants adhering to Islam, they are treated as strangers to the Ummah.

E

xtreme weather, rising sea levels, and damaged ecosystems may put billions of lives at risk. The “forgotten victims” of climate change will require a collaborative effort.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), of the United Nations has projected that there will be as many as 1 billion environmental migrants in the next 30 years, with more recent estimates indicating 1.2 billion by 2050 and 1.4 billion by 2060. As the world warms further and the global population reaches its forecasted peak in the mid-2050s, this number is projected to increase dramatically after 2060.

Most Affected

According to the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a research group that publishes yearly global terrorism and peace indexes, 1.2 billion people live in 31 nations that are not resilient enough to endure environmental hazards.

The IEPs first ecological threat register concluded the following:

• 19 countries experiencing the most challenges, including water and food shortages and increased vulnerability to natural disasters, are also among the world’s 40 least peaceful.
• Over a billion people reside in 31 nations whose resilience is unlikely to be sufficient to survive the effect of natural disasters by 2050, hence contributing to global population displacement.
• Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa face the most ecological risks.
• By 2040, more than half of the world’s projected population, or 5,4 billion people, would reside in the 59 nations experiencing high or extreme water stress, including India and China.
• By 2050, food insecurity might affect 3.5 billion individuals, an increase of 1.5 billion from now.

Pakistan, followed by Ethiopia and Iran, has the greatest number of people at risk of mass displacement. Haiti suffers the highest level of danger in Central America. In many countries, even minor ecological risks and natural calamities could result in mass population displacement, threatening regional and global security.

High-resilience regions, such as Europe and North America, will not be immune to the broader effects of ecological problems, such as the influx of a large number of migrants. In 2015, as a result of the wars in Syria and Iraq, two million refugees fled to Europe, highlighting the correlation between rapid population movements and political and social upheaval.

Climate refugees

The term ‘Climate Refugees’ has been present in public discourse since 1985, when UN Environment Program (UNEP) expert Essam El-Hinnawi defined ‘environmental refugees’ as: “ those who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of marked environmental disruption (natural and/or triggered by people) that jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life”.

Since 2008, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center reports that over 318 million people have been forcefully relocated by floods, windstorms, earthquakes, or droughts, including 30,7 million in 2020 alone. This equates to one individual being relocated every second. Depending on the frequency and magnitude of major natural disasters, the total number of displaced individuals varies significantly from year to year, although the trend over the past few decades has been upward. Many are able to find safety within their own nation, while others are compelled to find safety abroad.

Several European nations, notably Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, were devastated by catastrophic floods in July 2021, resulting in fatalities and massive destruction. According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the frequency and intensity of such severe weather events are projected to grow in the coming decades (IPCC). Climate refugees will likely rise in number.

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director stated in a UNICEF press release, that “climate and environmental shocks are undermining the complete spectrum of children’s rights, from access to clean air, food and safe water; to education, housing, freedom from exploitation, and even their right to survive.

Virtually no child’s life will be unaffected.

O

n October 15, Greece accused Turkey of abusing 92 migrants discovered naked and injured close to the Meriç River (Evros River), which serves as a natural border between the two countries.

The UNHCR demanded an urgent investigation and called the incident shocking, declaring that the images of the migrants were deeply distressing.

The Greek police stated that their investigation together with Frontex, the EU’s border agency, found evidence that the migrants crossed from Turkey to Greece in rubber dinghies.

It was claimed that the migrants had been forced by Turkish authorities to board three vehicles that took them to the border, and forcibly stripped naked before being placed in dinghies.

However, a recently leaked report by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) raises concerns about systematic misconduct from both the Greek border and coast guard authorities and Frontex.

Greek and Turkish officials exchange accusations

Notis Mitarachi, the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, said that Turkey’s behavior exceeds all limits. On October 16, he tweeted, “Turkey’s behavior towards 92 migrants whom we rescued at the borders today is a shame for civilization.” “We expect Ankara to investigate the incident and protect, at last, its border with the EU.”

Ibrahim Çataklı, Deputy Interior Minister of Turkey, replied to the tweet as follows, “As you couldn’t find one single case of a human rights violation by Turkey, you just seek to expose the image of your own cruelty as if Turkey did it.”

The Turkish Presidency’s Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun responded a day later with a series of tweets saying the allegations were “groundless and unfounded” with the intention of “putting our country under suspicion” and that “Greece once again showed the whole world that it does not even respect the dignity of these oppressed people, by publishing the photographs of the refugees it has deported, extorting their personal belongings.”

On October 17, Mitarachi claimed that Turkey deliberately directed immigrants across the EU border as migration has become a sensitive topic for the upcoming 2023 elections in Turkey.

He told the Greek-based channel SKAI TV that Turkey is in a very difficult position because these 92 people were found by Frontex itself which confirmed the incident.

Turkey denies the claims

Turkey’s Ministry of Internal Affairs  released a lengthy statement. In the statement, the ministry claimed that Greece was desperate on account of its inhumane treatment of migrants being made public by Turkish officials.

“It is very apparent that Greece is trying to cover up the systematic unlawful pushbacks they have been doing routinely by confiscating all the belongings of the migrants including their money, phones, IDs, and passports, throwing them into the sea, by taking all their clothing and shoes, battering them naked with batons, injuring them with electro-shock devices, shooting at them with rubber bullets or putting them on worn-out lifeboats,” the Turkish ministry said in the statement.

It added that these incidents have been documented in images and reports.

“Just last month they punctured the boat of a group of migrants including babies and infants who were trying to reach Italy from Lebanon. Having lost all their valuables, these people were left to die,” the ministry stated.

The statement also highlights that Athens is under pressure due to its violations of international law, and that a report by OLAF found abuse, irregularities, and cover-ups by the EU border agency, Frontex.

“Within this context, we underline that the fact that the Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum still holds his office and continues his baseless allegations against our country, whereas the Executive Director of Frontex was discharged from his position during the investigations and supervisions on the pushbacks, is unacceptable and we leave this to the discretion of the public opinion.”

Greek violations have become “an entrenched practice”

On October 14, a report by OLAF was leaked, in which it found individuals at Frontex, the European border and coast guard, complicit in pushbacks violating migrants’ “fundamental rights” and in partaking in misconduct.

The report shows that Frontex in collaboration with the Greek government mishandled and failed to report or investigate pushback accusations and evidence.

The investigation was conducted with information from open sources, media reports, documents from Frontex and the European Commission as well as interviews with 20 witnesses.

“OLAF concludes, based on the evidence collected during the investigation, that the allegations are proven,” the report reads. Frontex stated that it took remedial action and did not refute the accusations.

Human rights NGOs and leading media outlets have frequently reported the Greek pushbacks and other human rights breaches that violate international law.

A 2021 Amnesty report found that Greek human rights violations have become “an entrenched practice.” It revealed that especially in the Meriç (Evros) region, Greece used excessive violence against immigrants and refugees in February and March 2020.

Around 61,800 migrants have been pushed back by Greek authorities since 2020, 152 of which lost their lives, while 200 were injured, according to the Turkish Ministry of Interior Affairs.

Turkey regularly accuses Greece of violently pushing back migrants before they can file asylum claims, while Greece accuses Turkey of pushing forward migrants to pressure and destabilize the EU. Meanwhile, tensions remain high between the fallen-out neighbors due to issues such as maritime border altercations and Greece’s armament of the Aegean islands.

Written by Dilara Özer

Accommodation or the right to adequate housing, as a human right, is an integral part of the right to an adequate standard of living. However, the world has lately been dealing with an unprecedented surge in housing and rental prices that threatens this very fundamental right. Realtor companies, research centers, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT), and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) data provide enough evidence that house prices and rental costs are soaring, up to a few hundred percentage points in Turkey.

This recent sizable jump in property prices and rental rates, however, is mainly due to supply shortage and increasing costs of production. There is, overall, certainly a very high demand due to the younger population, increasing external demand, and recent migration waves towards Turkey. Meanwhile, housing supply has also been relatively weak and insufficient, which has affected the increasing house and rental prices and often leading to false allegations against immigrants.

Meanwhile, as of June 2022, official records reveal that the average housing demand from foreigners is about 5-6 percent of the total demand in Turkey. In other words, foreigners, and especially immigrants, are being scapegoated and hence, there is an urgent need to shed light on some misperceptions over property prices in Turkey and put an end to the theory that mainly immigrants or foreigners cause inflation or house price booms.

Housing and rental costs

Inflation is making life very costly for everyone living in Turkey, just as it is globally. Inflation rate has recently hit 79 percent—the highest in the past 24 years. Residential property prices and rental rates are among the leading factors in this figure. Decreasing supply in the past few years (especially during the pandemic), policies that surge demand in Turkey, increasing costs of production (a negative supply shock), and increasing demand are considered amongst the primary reasons for this surge.

Figure 1: The CBRT Residential Property Price Index in Turkey, Source: CBRT

The CBRT Residential Property Price Index (RPPI), for example, has reached 430.60 in May 2022 (Fig. 1). In 2017, this figure stood at 100. As of May 2020, the annual RPPI inflation is at 145.5 percent YOY (year-over-year). The inflation adjusted real-terms growth in residential property prices, on the other hand, is at 41.1 percent YOY. The real-terms growth in particular, is pretty much in line with the respective figures in the U.S. and Europe.

Rental rates are no different. Rental prices are up by 300-400 percent in some regions in southern Turkey, and up by 200-300 percent in some neighborhoods in Istanbul. Data by Endeksa, a private realtor, shows that, as of June 2022, rental rates in Muğla, a southwestern tourism hub, are up by 73 percent (reaching15,000 TL); in Antalya by 310 percent (10,400 TL); and in Istanbul the average rental rate is up by 168 percent (8,100 TL).

Of course, just as with the ongoing global inflation problem, soaring property prices and rental rates are also a global issue today. The U.S., the UK, many European, or even Asian economies such as China are facing new rounds of property crises and unprecedented price hikes in different forms. As Figure 2 demonstrates, many European and North American economies are facing this run-up in property prices. Turkey, with its relatively higher internal and external (exchange rate) inflation, is an outlier nowadays, and has a relatively higher price surge.

Figure 2: Nominal house prices, index is at 100 in 2015, data till Q2 of 2022. Source: OECD

In the U.S., the Case-Shiller Home Index reached 306 in May 2022. In January 2022, the index level was at 212, which means there is a 44 percent increase in the valuation of an average U.S. house over the past two and half years (Fig. 3). Average house prices are up by 10-15 percent in the past year, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows it would, on average, take a paid employee around 40 years to save and invest in order to buy a house.

Figure 3: Case-Shiller Home Index in the United States. Source: St. Louis Fed FRED database

Property bubble arguments, rocket high rents around the world are evident. However, recent tightening cycle and its further consequences for the global property markets are yet to be observed. The increasing costs of production, the rising cost of debt due to the recent tightening trend, and the concerns that properties are overpriced need to be kept under careful scrutiny. So, what can we expect in the future?

Commercial property investments are lately in decline in the West, including in the U.S., the UK, and Germany. China is already shaken by the property crisis or the Evergrande crisis in particular, and homebuyers are refusing to pay mortgage loans. The post-pandemic demand for rural areas and land may also take down urban real estate prices.

New trends such as remote work may also help bring down demand for office rentals. Swiss bank UBS expects a 20 percent decline in demand for office leases. Shares of real estate companies and real estate trusts may also go down, but house prices are likely to remain high—hopefully, however, without increasing further.

Liz Truss is the Member of Parliament for Southwest Norfolk, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs, and Minister of Women and Equalities. She is presently one of the leading candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, who will likely become the next British Prime Minister.

The alternatives for Boris Johnson’s replacement as party leader and Prime Minister have been reduced to two contenders by Conservative MPs. On September 5, following a runoff vote among Conservative party members, either Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former Chancellor Rishi Sunak will be crowned the victor.

With three weeks remaining in the contest for the leadership of the British Conservative Party, the foreign secretary is farther ahead of her opponent Rishi Sunak. She has the support of eleven government whips as she strives to extend her advantage against Rishi Sunak among Conservative party members.

In light of the increasing cost of living and the impending recession, the new British prime minister will have to strike the ground running. Therefore, the focus has already shifted to Truss’ first steps at No. 10 should she become Prime Minister as predicted.

According to YouGov, Liz Truss now has a 38-point advantage against Rishi Sunak among Conservative members. Currently, the foreign secretary has 69% of the popular vote versus Sunak’s 31%. Both contenders have set out some of their policies already and will continue to do so in the coming weeks – Here is what we know about Liz Truss so far.

Domestic Affairs

Speaking at the Tory party leadership debate in Eastbourne, Truss said that if she were to become prime minister, her proposals for quick tax cuts may prevent a recession.

She stated: “I know there are difficult forecasts out there, but forecasts are not destiny. And what we shouldn’t be doing is talking ourselves into a recession. We should be keeping taxes low.”

This is in response to the Bank of England’s warning that a recession will hit the UK as interest rates are increased by the greatest in 27 years.

According to the Bank of England’s Governor, Andrew Bailey, “what has happened is there has been a series of big supply side shocks, most of which were outside… I would dare anyone to have been in this position two years ago and predicted a conflict in Ukraine,” he continued. He maintained that, while the bulk of inflationary pressure was caused by rising gas prices in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, boosting interest rates was required to avoid excessive inflation from being ingrained.

Immigration

Truss has nearly always voted for stricter asylum laws and has consistently supported stricter enforcement of immigration laws. She has stated that she “completely agrees” with the Rwandan government’s immigration policy and has gone further than other candidates, reportedly planning to “extend the controversial policy to other countries” if elected prime minister.

She stated, “As prime minister, I am determined to see the Rwanda policy through to full implementation as well as exploring other countries where we can work on similar partnerships.”

She was absent in 2020 from a vote on the Immigration and Social Security Coordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill — New Clause — Leave to Enter: Family Unity and Asylum Claims. She has also voted to remove the ability of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, spouses, vulnerable adults, and dependent adults to join a legally present family member in the United Kingdom.

Education

Truss has virtually always voted in favor of turning primary and secondary schools into academies, and she has repeatedly voted to withdraw financial aid for certain 16- to 19-year-olds in training and higher education. In addition, she voted to increase university tuition fees to £9,000 per year.

Foreign Policy

Truss voted a mixture of for and against strengthening the Military Covenant. Truss has regularly supported the employment of British military personnel in combat operations abroad during her time as a member of parliament, including voting for military action against Daesh in Syria. But she also voted against Iraq War inquiry bills.

In November 2016, Truss voted against an investigation into the disparity between public rhetoric and private conduct before the Iraq war. In November, 2020, she voted in favor of putting limitations on the prosecution of members of the armed forces for their conduct while deployed abroad, including in cases of alleged torture, therefore reiterating her earlier vote.

However, in an interview with the BBC, she said that if she were to become prime minister, she would not deploy British soldiers into Ukraine.

She stated, “We are doing all we can to support Ukraine. We’ve led the international coalition on sending weapons, we’re putting the sanctions in place, but I do not support the direct involvement of UK troops.”

What happens next?

The two candidates must now face off in 5 Tory hustings debates throughout the nation, a procedure that started on July 28 in Leeds and will culminate on August 31 in London. The victor will be declared on Monday, September 5, and will become the next Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister.

They are all “terrorists” to Victor Orbán, Hungarian prime minister. In the words of Czech President Miloš Zeman, “They do not deserve the slightest pity for embarking their children on rubber boats knowing they could drown.” According to French politician Eric Zemmour, they are “thieves, murderers, rapists.” “What would have happened if Aylan Kurdi and the likes had lived and grown?” asks the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, infamous for its black humor, depicting Aylan Kurdi, whose little body tragically washed ashore at the age of 3, in a cartoon harassing a woman in Germany by touching her buttocks! As the French anthropologist Michel Agier, who is known for his works and books on immigrants, says, the enemies of immigrants envision two worlds: one world is clean, healthy, and visible, and the other is the dirty, murky, sickening, and invisible world of “The Leftovers.”

Muslim minorities and immigrants, who are the target of all kinds of demonization propaganda by far-right and racist parties across the world and especially in Europe, have been the target of Turkey’s main opposition party, CHP (Republican People’s Party) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and his party members since 2012. However, there are two differences from their European counterparts—the second being utterly ironic. First, CHP is a left-wing party and a member of the Socialist International. And second, even though CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu uses similar expressions as Orbán and Marine Le Pen regarding refugees, he refers to them as “my brothers”!

For example, in response to the possibility of the migration of approximately 1 million Syrians gathered in Idlib in 2021, fleeing the attacks of the Syrian regime advancing with the support of Russia, he stated, “All of my brothers from Idlib are bloody people, they are members of the terrorist organization,” i.e., [ISIS/Daesh]. He has sworn on oath and repeated it over and over to this day: “Be assured, these Syrian brothers, I swear by God, they will be a scourge on the nation. The most important actors of the underworld will emerge from among these people.” Implying that some of them are terrorists, he claims, “We do not know who is a terrorist and who is innocent. You see, in many places, attacks have already started”—this, without bothering himself to explain who, where, when, and how.

Perhaps Kılıçdaroğlu was inspired by the famous Great Replacement conspiracy theory of Renaud Camus, the muse of the French far right, or maybe the mental reflexes of immigrants’ enemies have always worked in the same way. Even though there is nowhere in Turkey where the number of Syrians is higher than the settled population and the total number of Syrians granted citizenship does not exceed 300,000, Turkey’s left-wing main opposition party leader claims “Turkey’s DNAs are being clearly altered” and “If there is an election, our Syrian brothers will win the mayorships. There are Syrians in all 81 provinces. In some of our provinces, the Syrian population is more than the local people.”

Furthermore, Kılıçdaroğlu argues, “Syrians have all kinds of privileges” and unlike Turks, “They do not wait in line at hospitals and doctors examine them first. They enroll at universities without taking the nationwide exam. Their tradesmen and businessmen do not pay taxes and are not subject to any control whatsoever.” According to the CHP leader, every segment of society, “shopkeepers, farmers, laborers, unemployed, disabled, interns, and others” are deprived of the government’s support compared to Syrian immigrants.

“The government gives Syrians the money it should give Turkish people,” he often repeats. “Oh well, never mind, our children can stay poor, unemployed! Syrians are first class, our citizens are second.” Unsatisfied with provoking people based on class lines, he sometimes calls separate ethnic and religious groups to revolt: “You [addressing President Erdoğan] don’t take care about me as much as you take care about Syrians. They are first class citizens. I [Eastern Romans] have been here since Mehmet the Conqueror and I am still a third-class citizen. You shall revolt, you will say we do not accept it.”

If the party leader himself vilifies refugees and incites people against them, imagine, how far the members of his party can go. According to Fikri Sağlar, a former CHP minister, “Syrians carry HIV/AIDS to the country.” Refugees should never “set foot in İzmir, the bright face of our country” according to Özlem Ağırman, an MP for İzmir. “A refugee camp to be opened is a dagger lowered into the heart of İzmir,” claims Aytun Çıray, another CHP MP for İzmir. According to former CHP deputy İlhan Cihaner, “The people of Hatay should never rent out their houses to refugees” and should even “react to and stop greeting whoever greets them.”

While Hayri Türkyılmaz, CHP mayor of Bursa’s Mudanya district, imposed a “coast ban” on refugees, whom he said “live the life of Riley,” Tanju Özcan, CHP mayor of Bolu, said, “We don’t want to see Syrians in Bolu.” Özcan surpassed Zemmour’s far-right statements, giving direct instructions: “Syrians should not be given business licenses anymore.” In the first week he took office, Özcan proudly cut off the food and cash aid to refugees. In Hatay, the CHP municipality removed the signboards with Arabic inscriptions in neighborhoods with a high density of Syrian refugees on the grounds that they created “visual pollution.”

Has the Republican People’s Party not developed any positive discourse or action regarding refugees? It has. Two reports were prepared within the party, expressing the hardships faced by refugees. CHP Deputy Chairman and Istanbul Deputy Gamze Akkuş İlgezdi met face-to-face with Syrian refugees living in İstanbul in 2021 and prepared a report entitled “Syrian Asylum Seekers in İstanbul, Their Tendency to Return and Expectations.” In the report, İlgezdi wrote, “When criticizing the government, we must be careful not to instrumentalize refugees and not to make them the target of racist reactions.” There are findings in the report revealing, albeit indirectly, the view of CHP and its supporters towards refugees: “Syrians generally prefer districts where AKP members primarily live.”

There are other critical determinations in the report such as “it would not be wrong to say that Turkmens, who have less difficulties of integration due to language and are more easily accepted by Turks thanks to their ethnic origins, protect their Arab and Kurdish neighbors” or “asylum-seekers of Kurdish origin, who prefer to come to Turkey instead of Rojava, see solidarity from Arabs and Turkmens, not from the Kurds of Turkey.” In addition, a group of CHP deputies prepared a report entitled “Between Borders: From the Human Drama to the Test of Humanity” in 2016. The report is generally positive, although it has been criticized for some gaps and exaggerations, or for handling the issue from a security perspective rather than a humanitarian one.

However, neither report had any effect on the party leader, the discourse of the party members, and the party’s anti-immigrant policies. In fact, while both reports talked about the need not to target refugees, they did not discuss who and by which politicians refugees were targeted and demonized! Ercüment Akdeniz, a staff writer for the left-wing newspaper Evrensel with the most ethical and principled language of journalism on the subject of “refugees” in the Turkish press from the beginning, asks in one of his columns, “Which CHP should we believe in?” pointing to the contrasts between the statements of the CHP leader and the reports.

The left-liberal Bianet newspaper, on the other hand, criticized the opposition parties in the article “Anti-refugee: Immorality of the Opposition for the Sake of Opposition.” Bianet’s criticism was based on the grounds that Turkey’s opposition parties adopt the rhetoric of far-right parties in Europe about immigrants, foreigners, Muslims, and Turks. In the same vein, it condemned the anti-refugee publications of the newspaper Sözcü, the CHP’s mouthpiece, and asked, “What is the difference between those who set the houses of Turks on fire and the opposition newspaper Sözcü, which targeted the neighborhood where Somali immigrants settled in Ankara?”

Kılıçdaroğlu, who has not criticized Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad even once, has promised to deport refugees if he wins the 2023 elections. Similar to his brilliantly original expression of “my bloody terrorist brothers from Idlib,” the CHP leader awkwardly said, “We will deport them to Syria with drums and horns.” Meral Akşener, the leader of İyi Party, the second strongest political party in the People’s Alliance, like the German far-right AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), stated, “We will talk to Assad and send them back.”

There is yet another political figure, Ümit Özdağ, who resigned from İyi Party a year ago and founded a new party, the Victory Party, focusing all his political discourse on refugees. Unlike Kılıçdaroğlu, he openly targets refugees on social media with his fictional video films accusing them of “perversion” and “harassing Turkish girls and women.”

In the 21st-century world where refugees are treated as garbage, since 2012, Turkey has been the most gracious country, hosting nearly 4 million Syrian refugees, most of whom are children (about 2 million) and women. The state tradition that has turned Anatolia into a home for asylum seekers throughout history continues under the leadership of President Erdoğan.

Despite the fact that lately the language of the opposition has become effective in Turkey, and we are witnessing rising anti-immigrant sentiments, Erdoğan still asks, “Did the Syrians come to Turkey for their own pleasure? Didn’t the fear of death there lead them to seek asylum and migrate to Turkey?” He adds, “We have never expelled them from these lands, nor will we expel them… Our door is open to refugees, [and] we will continue to host them.”

With the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the safety of the Ukrainian people has been endangered. As a result, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) estimates that more than 7.7 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced in their country. Moreover, as of May 23, more than 7.5 million Ukrainians have had to take refuge in neighboring countries—including Russia—for international protection in order to secure their lives.

If the war continues, the number of Ukrainian refugees and asylum seekers in Europe—including those in Russia—, which currently exceeds 7.5 million, is expected to reach 8 million by the end of June. This indicates that Europe as a whole is facing a much bigger crisis than the irregular mass migration crisis it experienced in 2015.

Europe’s Open-Door Policy for Ukrainians

Following the onset of the Ukraine war on February 24, European countries have been following an open-door policy towards Ukrainian asylum seekers fleeing the war. As a matter of fact, Ukrainian asylum seekers have been placed under international protection in Europe, and officially become refugees.

According to the UNHCR data, as of May 23, the countries receiving the largest numbers of Ukrainian refugees are Poland (3.5 million), Romania (966,000), Hungary (650,000), Moldova (470,000), and Slovakia (445,000) respectively. Additionally, approximately 930,000 Ukrainians have taken refuge in Russia so far.

It should be noted that since Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia are EU members, nearly two million Ukrainians have moved to other member states on their own will or within the scope of temporary protection programs announced by the EU. According to the official statements made by some EU member states on different occasions, Germany has received 715,000 Ukrainian refugees, the Czech Republic 330,000, Bulgaria 270,000, and Italy 120,000.

Another indicator that shows that European countries have been embracing Ukrainian refugees is the official protection programs. This includes temporary protection mechanisms that the EU has started to implement. This mechanism in progress is based on the Temporary Protection Directive adopted by the EU in 2001.

With this mechanism, which offers a temporary solution in the periods of irregular mass migration, Ukrainians are allowed to obtain a residence permit in the EU countries, to benefit from education and health services, and to work in various ways according to the national legislation of the member countries. Moreover, the EU has accepted to pay €3.5 billion as part of the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU), and €4 billion credit line as part of the Ukraine Solidarity Package in advance to member states to help them welcome and accommodate Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

The EU’s temporary protection application, which has been used for the first time since 2001, is actually a significant step towards a more humane protection regime and fairer responsibility-sharing among the EU member states. It is also a move away from the strict Dublin Regulation which puts an official pressure of hosting refugees on the first entrance countries.

The mechanism will remain in force for one year at the first stage, but may be extended for a total of one additional year. In addition, since there is a visa exemption between the EU and Ukraine since 2017, Ukrainian citizens have the opportunity to stay in EU countries up to 90 days upon arrival.

Europe’s Double Standards on Refugee Policies

Despite the positive perception of Ukrainian refugees by European countries, there is the paradox that those very same countries followed a closed-door policy during the 2015 refuge crisis. It bears repeating that a strict securitization policy was followed against the irregular mass migration of 1.3 million from the Middle East and North African to Europe due to civil wars, conflicts, or poor economic conditions. As a result, most European countries dealt with the issue of irregular migration from a pure security perspective and tried to keep asylum seekers outside their borders.

Today, it is not possible to say that there is a similar reception towards Ukrainian refugees. On the contrary, acting quickly and decisively, European countries have opened their borders in unprecedented solidarity towards Ukrainians. While the EU did not previously implement the Temporary Protection Directive, it decided to implement it immediately upon the start of irregular migration from Ukraine.

Regarding Europe’s double standards on refugees, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov’s following statement is quite noteworthy: “These [Ukrainian refugees] are not the refugees we are used to. As the Austrian chancellor said, these are our relatives, family. These are Europeans, intelligent, educated people, some of them are programmers. We, like everyone else, are ready to welcome them. This is not the usual refugee wave of people with an unclear past. None of the European countries is worried about them.”

Likewise, Greek Minister of Immigration, Notis Mitarachi, who drew the reaction of international organizations for his harsh and cruel practices against refugees, used the word “real refugees” to describe Ukrainians in his speech in the Greek Parliament. Such statements, whose number is way greater, reveal that European countries act on cultural and religious motives while determining their policies on refugees.

What is more, it is widely believed that Ukraine’s historical and political ties with European countries play an important role in this process. In other words, since European countries have stronger ties with Ukraine, a more tolerant attitude has been displayed towards Ukrainians.

However, none of these reasons change the fact that European countries avoided the humanitarian responsibility they should have undertaken in the crisis in 2015 and today are acting in an ambivalent manner. The warm welcome by Europeans to Ukrainians needs to be extended unequivocally to all asylum seekers.

Recently, the debates in Turkish politics around migrants and refugees have heated. A short film titled Silent Invasion (Sessiz İstila in Turkish) funded by far-right nationalist Victory Party leader Ümit Özdağ, brought the topic to the fore. The film contains polarizing, racist, and exaggerated depictions of Istanbul in 2043 overtaken by Syrians where the Turkish population has become a minority and is oppressed. The film utilizes populist rhetoric urging people to consider migration issues as black-and-white.

The volume of posts circulating on social media that claim to show disorderly behavior by foreigners (mainly Syrian and Afghani refugees) has also increased. These posts amplified in number at a time when the Turkish population has become economically vulnerable due to the economic hardships, primarily the high inflation. Nowadays, the government’s policies for regulating legal and illegal migration are being questioned more frequently.

Frustrations surrounding migration

The arguments surrounding migration escalated in 2021 over refugees from Afghanistan who left their country following the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s immediate takeover. Concerns surrounding Afghani refugees triggered those already existing over Syrians, aggravating calls from the public for stronger border security.

Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Turkey has hosted a large influx of refugees, a development for which the country was not well prepared. Turkey adopted an open-door policy for people fleeing the conflict, granting them temporary protection status.

The temporary protection regime grants legal residence and access to health care services, education, social assistance, and interpretation. It also provides a safeguard from being sent to Syria against the will of the recipient. Today, the number of refugees in Turkey has reached 4 million, 3.6 million of them Syrian.

The refugee crisis has cost Turkey around 40 billion dollars as it endures high inflation and economic problems. For many migrants, Turkey is a transit point to Europe or other countries in the West. Although the EU pledged 6 billion euros in aid for refugees, it has only provided half of the amount.

As a policy to combat economic problems partially, Turkey facilitated visas, residencies, and acquisition of Turkish citizenship by investment. This piled on to the recent economic frustrations.

New regulations to control migration and population integrity

In February, Turkey restricted additional settlement of refugees in 16 provinces. Furthermore, the Ministry of Interior announced that residency applications are closed to foreigners within local communities where the population of foreign nationals surpasses 25% of the total population. Upon implementation, 781 neighborhoods in Turkey were closed to registry.

Foreigners in areas with high concentration of foreign nationals will be relocated to different districts and provinces on a voluntary basis. According to Çataklı, they were given around two months to change their address with the help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to facilitate the process. Those under temporary protection risk losing their status if their new address is not notified after two months.

The deputy minister also mentioned that unregistered newcomers from Syria will not automatically be given protection statuses. They will be taken to camps where it will be investigated whether they need temporary protection or not, as people from regime-controlled areas are entering Turkey for economic reasons rather than fleeing war or persecution.

New measures have been introduced to prevent regular migrants from turning into irregular ones upon visa expiry. Fingerprints will be taken upon visa application so that the migrants who enter the country with visas but do not leave when their visa expires and destroy their passports can be duly identified.

Furthermore, in April, it was announced that the amount required for Turkish citizenship through buying real estate increased from $250,000 to $400,000.

The Turkish government seems to be dealing with migration more extensively compared to previous years as signs of social discontent are strongly surfacing. However, it remains to be seen whether existing measures are sufficient or satisfying to public opinion. As elections in 2023 near, it seems migration will continue to remain a hot topic in Turkish politics.

People who are seeking refuge in the UK are now to be transported to Rwanda under a contentious new system slammed by international human rights organizations as “shockingly ill-conceived idea” and in violation of international responsibilities.

In a speech on Thursday on April 21, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the initiative as an “innovative approach, driven by our shared humanitarian impulse and made possible by Brexit freedoms” adding that with the UK’s assistance, Rwanda will be able to relocate “tens of thousands of people in the years ahead.”

Priti Patel, UK Home Secretary, said during a joint press conference in Rwanda’s capital Kigali on April 15, that persons transferred to Rwanda “will be given the support including up to five years of training, integration, accommodation, health care, so that they can resettle and thrive.”

Under the new Asylum Partnership Arrangement, people arriving in the UK from January 1, 2022 may be transferred to Rwanda on a one-way ticket to have their asylum application investigated and, if found to be refugees, to be granted refugee status there.

According to the Home Office report published on April 15, it states that “the UK is investing  £120 million into the economic development and growth of Rwanda,” which will cover funding that will assist the delivery of asylum operations, housing, and integration, which will be equivalent to the expenditures paid in the UK for these services.

Despite previously holding negotiations with a number of African nations including Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tunisia, the Nordic country has yet to reach an agreement with any of them.

The Scandinavian country, which has shifted to the right, has taken increasingly punitive measures against asylum seekers. It enacted a bill in 2021 allowing migrants in Denmark to be transferred to asylum centers in a partner nation. The concept of delegating responsibility for processing asylum applications to asylum seekers is both arguably negligent and inhumane by intentional law.

Similar models, such as the Australian model or the so-called “hotspots” in the Greek islands, have resulted in major episodes of imprisonment, physical abuse, and a lack of health care.

Reaction from human rights organizations

The Asylum Partnership Agreement proposed by the Home Office in the UK is in violation of asylum law and the Geneva Convention, to which the UK is a signatory. Those who cross the border illegally to seek refuge, according to the Geneva convention should not receive punishment, stated by Article 31.

Human Rights Watch has criticized the disparity between refugees fleeing Ukraine and those fleeing other conflicts outside of Europe. According to the organization, “at a time when the people of the UK have opened their hearts and homes to Ukrainians, the government is choosing to act with cruelty and rip up their obligations to others fleeing war and persecution.”

In a statement, the Danish Refugee Council said that sending asylum seekers overseas for processing is “both irresponsible and lacking in solidarity.” The NGO also questioned the practicality of the plan, saying, “it is also still very unclear how a possible reception center in a third country would be administered.”

Amnesty International UK said in a statement, “Sending people to another country – let alone one with such a dismal human rights record – for asylum ‘processing’ is the very height of irresponsibility and shows how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues.”

Could Russian President Vladimir Putin be prosecuted for war crimes in Ukraine? What about Russian military commanders and ordinary Russian soldiers? On the other side, could Ukraine President Volodmyr Zelensky, Ukrainian commanders or ordinary Ukrainian soldiers be prosecuted?

These questions have taken on increased urgency as Russia’s military action in Ukraine promises to continue for an extended period of time. To answer these questions, one must ask, first, what constitutes a crime in warfare. And second, if crimes are committed, is there a court that can actually prosecute and impose punishment.

The rules of war apply to all those who participate in war, from soldiers on the ground to the top commanders. They may lawfully kill people on the other side, but they may not kill civilians. If they take captives, they must treat them humanely. It matters not who started a war. Once a war begins, the rules apply equally to both sides.

Eyes on Russia

In the current hostilities in Ukraine, most attention has been on crimes that may have been committed on the Russian side. It is the Russian army that has taken action resulting in the deaths of at least several thousand Ukrainians. Bombardment by long-range missiles has resulted in many deaths. If bombardment is intended to harm civilians, then it is a crime.

Even if not intended to harm civilians, it is a crime if done “in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects.” That is wording from the Statute of the International Criminal Court, the court established twenty years ago in the Hague to prosecute persons who commit war crimes and other internationally defined offenses.

The recent bombing of a rail station in the city of Kramatorsk similarly appears to be an attack on a civilian objective. Investigators must determine whether the rail station was targeted intentionally, or whether the attack could have been aimed at some military objective in the vicinity. So far, no such evidence has appeared. Even if the Kramatorsk rail station was hit accidentally, it might still be a war crime on the basis that care was not taken to avoid hitting civilians.

So if a missile is launched against a military target, such an attack is unlawful if civilians are nearby and can be expected to be hit. Images from Ukraine circulating in the media show apartment buildings destroyed by missile attack. On the face of it, such attacks seem to be unlawful. Even if Ukrainian fighters are present in an apartment building, the harm to others is so predictable that an attack is not lawful.

One hospital was bombed by a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. On the face of it, this appears to be an unlawful attack. There was some information, however, that this hospital had been taken over by a Ukrainian military unit and was not at the time functioning as a hospital. This is the kind of situation that must be investigated to determine if a war crime was committed.

There are allegations about acts of Russian soldiers in areas they have captured, like the town of Bucha near Kyiv. Civilians were apparently killed during the time the Russian army was in occupation. Investigators are working to find evidence as to how civilians were killed in Bucha and in other towns under Russian occupation.

It must be determined first whether they were killed by Russians. If that is the case, it must be determined whether the killings were carried out by Russian soldiers at their own initiative, or whether Russian commanders ordered or condoned the killings. If that is so, then commanders too would be guilty of war crimes.

Ukraine’s responsibility

On the Ukrainian side, its army is not causing damage on a similar scale against the Russians. It is directing its fire against the Russian military. So any prosecution of Ukrainian leadership figures is unlikely. The situation in which crimes have been alleged against Ukrainian personnel involve Russian captives, for example, shooting Russian prisoners in the knee. If prisoners are abused, this is a war crime. If commanders condone such abuse, they too are guilty.

The importance of all this law on war crimes is that it lets everyone know that they might be held accountable. Actual accountability, however, is far from certain. Sometimes the authorities of an army prosecute their own personnel. Sometimes prosecutions are undertaken by authorities of an opposing army. Sometimes they are undertaken by prosecutors in states that are not directly involved. Recently, Syrians alleged to have committed war crimes in the Syrian civil war have been prosecuted in Germany.

The International Criminal Court

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, a British lawyer named Karim Khan, has opened an investigation into possible crimes committed in Ukraine. The International Criminal Court focuses on high-level personnel. Khan is not likely to indict ground troops. Indictments against Russian commanders, particularly for bombardment of civilians, appear a serious possibility, however. The prosecutor may be able to identify particular commanders responsible for particular missile strikes. Under the court’s procedures, even cabinet ministers and presidents can be indicted.

The International Criminal Court does actually try persons and sentences them to prison. The court does not have its own prisons, but different countries house prisoners on the court’s behalf. The difficulty for the International Criminal Court is to gain custody in order to conduct a trial. The court does not try anyone in their absence. If Russian commanders, or even top civilian leaders are indicted, the Russian government is unlikely to surrender them.

States that are party to the International Criminal Court, however, have an obligation to surrender persons who are under indictment. Over one hundred states are parties. Anyone under indictment who travels to such a state risks arrest.

The United States: double standards?

The United States has been publicly accusing the Russian military and civilian leadership of war crimes. Last year, when the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor opened an investigation that may result in prosecution of Israeli officials over Israel’s unlawful settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, the United States criticized the prosecutor. Israel is not a party to the International Criminal Court, and the United States stated its view that there is no legal basis to prosecute nationals of a state that is not a party.

Russia, similar to Israel, is not a party. So, by the U.S. logic, there should be no prosecution of Russian nationals. The United States did not criticize Khan, however, for opening an investigation that may lead to prosecution of Russian nationals. The United States thus is open to an accusation of double standards.

Ukraine too finds itself in an awkward legal position. Like Russia, Ukraine is not a party to the International Criminal Court. Technically, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction to prosecute for war crimes committed in Ukraine, because Ukraine has taken advantage of a special provision that allows a state that is not a party to the court to give the court the right to prosecute for crimes in its territory.

However, since Ukraine is not a party, if Ukrainians were to commit war crimes in a foreign country, they could not be prosecuted. So Ukraine is asking for Russians to be prosecuted for war crimes in Ukraine, while Ukrainians cannot be prosecuted by the court for war crimes they might commit in other countries.

The president of the Spanish government Pedro Sánchez flew to Morocco on Thursday, April 7, to have a ftour (Moroccan iftar) with King Mohamed VI, and thus seal a reconciliation with his southern neighbor. It is more than likely that the harira, the traditional soup that Moroccans eat to break their fast, must have had a bitter taste for the Spanish leader.

A few hours before he flew to Rabat, the Spanish Congress of Deputies voted a “Proposición no de ley,” a Spanish parliamentary non-binding non-legislative motion, harshly reproaching the president for his reversal on the Western Sahara conflict.

Only 118 deputies of Sánchez’s PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) voted against the motion. The rest, a total of 168 deputies, some of whom are part of the government coalition or support the government without participating in it, and the conservative right-wing Popular Party MPs voted in favor of the motion. Sixty-one other deputies abstained, representing the far-right Vox and the center-liberals Ciudadanos (Citizens).

With the exception of the Socialists, everyone wanted to express their disagreement, if not anger, at the president for breaking a 46-year-old consensus, respected by all Spanish executives—right, center, and left—since the death of General Franco.

As a former colonial power that is still considered by the UN as the administrative power of Western Sahara (Morocco being a de facto power), Spain was bound to a certain so-called active neutrality. It was not supposed to lean towards either Morocco or the Polisario Front independence fighters. However, in a letter to the King of Morocco, Sánchez stated that he favored the Moroccan proposal of autonomy offered to the Saharawis in 2007, dubbing it “the most serious, realistic, and credible,” thus dynamiting this old and very sensitive balance.

In a widely read tweet, Iceta shared an article from the daily El Periódico de España in which he explained that there had been a barter between Spain and Morocco. In exchange for Madrid’s acceptance of the Moroccan autonomy proposal for Western Sahara, Rabat is said to have committed itself to stop claiming the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canary Islands. “The agreement obliges Morocco to give up Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canary Islands,” the newspaper wrote peremptorily.

And this is where it all gets murky and incomprehensible. By negotiating its renunciation of the self-determination of the Saharawis, in violation of international law since it is the UN that manages this conflict, did Madrid obtain written assurances from the Moroccans? Nothing could be further from certain.

Morocco will never give up its claims on Ceuta and Melilla, which it has economically suffocated by closing its borders and putting an end to smuggling, which is one of the sources of the prosperity of these two free ports.

It is not for nothing that Morocco has built a huge port on the Strait of Gibraltar, Tangier-Med, in one of the most important maritime crossing points in the world. Tangier-Med, considered today one of the largest ports in Africa, competes directly with the port of Algeciras, located on the other side of the strait, but also with the port of Ceuta.

As for Melilla, the unilateral closure in 2018 of the only land custom crossing between Spain and Morocco, that of Beni Ensar, opened after the Treaty of Fès in 1912 and ratified after Morocco’s independence in 1956, is another manifestation of the Moroccan will to strangle the economy of this city.

On the other hand, although Morocco does not formally claim the Canary Islands, in 2020, the House of Representatives (lower house of parliament) voted two bills extending Moroccan territorial waters to a point overlapping with those of the islands.

It is therefore hard to see Rabat giving up its historical claims to landlocked territories in Africa only to thank the Spanish government for saying that it found the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara to be the “most serious, realistic, and credible.”

Moreover, in the joint Spanish-Moroccan declaration at the end of the meeting with Sánchez in Rabat, there is no mention of Ceuta and Melilla. On the other hand, Article 3 of the document refers to the “full normalization of the movement of persons and goods,” which “will be re-established in an orderly manner, including appropriate arrangements for land and maritime customs and control of persons.” Does this mean that Morocco will reopen the old Beni Ensar land customs, which was abruptly closed in 2018? It is possible, but not yet certain.

What is certain, however, and is written in Article 6 of this declaration, is that Morocco seems to be backing down on its claims to the territorial waters of the Canary Islands, since it talks about the reactivation of a “working group on the delimitation of the maritime spaces of the Atlantic seaboard (…) with the aim of making concrete progress.” This seems to indicate that Morocco will review the two laws that allow Moroccan territorial waters to overlap with those of Spain.

March has proved to be a busy month for the Taliban as they crackdown on basic freedoms and announce dramatic changes for the Afghan people, particularly the women.

First, the Taliban banned education for girls beyond 6th grade, making a sudden U-turn decision that ignited concern and raised many questions around the world. Second, women can no longer travel without a male chaperone, whether it be by car or plane. Third, recreational parks have become segregated by gender allowing men to visit on four days and women on the other three days. Finally, international media outlets like the BBC and Voice of America have been banned, taking their news bulletins off the air.

These hasty decisions have made experts, officials, and those familiar with the group concerned about what it could mean for the future direction of the country, and rightfully so. But besides the obvious concerns, the Taliban’s crackdown on basic freedoms is a sign of their weakness and inability to address the myriad of problems Afghanistan faces. Simply put, the Taliban are shooting themselves in the foot, showing their severe short-sightedness and major handicaps.

The Taliban are pushing to return to the past

Months before the talk of the Taliban joining some sort of power-sharing deal in Kabul, many in Washington were suggesting that the Taliban have softened their extremist religious interpretations and brutal use of force.

The narrative of a Taliban 2.0. dominated western circles, officials and leaders expressed hope in the group’s change of course this time around. But for most Afghans, skepticism was always there. How can a group that has countlessly violated human rights ever be trusted again?

During its first stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban deprived all girls and women of education, keeping them in the dark. Similarly, media and freedom of expression took a strong detour as journalists could not report the realities happening on the ground. Other tactics like moral policing, interrogations, and reprisals against government workers, activists, and important figures were a common part of life under Taliban rule.

The Taliban are inconsistent

Amid the onslaught of their recapture, experts were mostly unsure what the Taliban had in mind.

In an interview with BBC, Saad Mohseni, head of Tolo News, Afghanistan’s leading TV news channel asked the question that was on everyone’s minds, “will the real Taliban please stand up?”

He added, “we are getting different opinions and views from different quarters. Now is the time to make it clear to them [the Taliban] that if you go back to the mid 1990s, it’s not going to be acceptable to the world at large.”

It’s true. Since their takeover, the Taliban’s messaging has been inconsistent with ambiguous responses to the pressing concerns of education, media, and women’s rights. It is no wonder why the international community is walking on eggshells, still very reluctant to officially recognize a group that has little cohesion and a bad reputation on top of that.

Many experts believe that these inconsistencies reflect the deep friction between the Taliban’s political leaders and their hardline commanders and foot soldiers, whereas the abrupt backtrack on girls going to school acts as the biggest indicator of this.

It’s important to note that the Taliban are not a homogenous unit. Their political wing and military wing differ in terms of their degree in religious conviction. The problem with this is that neither wing can survive without the other, and for top tier Taliban heads like Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, they cannot afford to lose the loyalty of their foot soldiers who are holding everything down for them and therefore must appease them to prevent any further PR damage.

The Taliban cannot address the elephant in the room

Perhaps, the biggest handicap the Taliban faces is their inability to address the elephant in the room: the economic and humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Afghanistan.

In fact, many Taliban members have desperately called upon former Afghan government officials and other actors to return and assist them with technical expertise because they fail to have any skills themselves.

As the group focuses on the lengths of men’s beards, the dress code of women, and how to hoist their flag atop the hills of Kabul, meanwhile, Afghans are starving.

A UNDP study conducted in September stated that 97 percent of Afghans could plunge into poverty by mid 2022.

The death toll has increased to 25 as Tunisian officials found five new bodies of migrants who lost their lives off the Tunisian coasts on their way to Europe. The bodies were found on March 18 and 19, 2022.

The total number of migrant deaths involved in the incident is unknown as there is no information on the number of people who were in the capsized boat, while the search for survivors continues by the Tunisian authorities.

The bodies of dead migrants washed up on Nabeul Beach, to the northeast of the country.

“Migration remains relatively muted in Tunisia, despite its increased popularity as a transit country and the growing number of people drowning off its coasts,” Michela Pugliese, a migration and asylum researcher at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Politics Today.

Many refugees choose Libya and Tunisia as points of departure for Europe. According to the International Organization of Migration (IOM), at least 348 migrants and asylum seekers have died or gone missing in 2021, joining over 23,000 others who have lost their lives since 2014.

The busiest and deadliest migration route to Europe

Many migrants use the Central Mediterranean route to reach Italy. In 2020, according to the UNHCR, 34,154 people arrived in Italy. Reports show that over 88,000 migrants arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean in 2021.

According to the IOM, 348 people have died or gone missing by the end of February 2022.

Thousands of North African and Middle Eastern refugees and asylum seekers try crossing the Mediterranean every year as a result of poverty and conflict in their home countries.

According to the European Council’s data published in February 2022, Bangladeshis and Egyptians use the Central Mediterranean route from North Africa via Tunisia to reach Italy (Europe).

The asylum researcher told Politics Today that “half of the EU member states consider Tunisia a ‘safe country of origin,’ meaning that when Tunisian nationals reach Europe, they tend to be quickly repatriated and their asylum claims impatiently rejected. What Europe mainly does for migrants leaving Tunisia is provide support to the authorities to increase their capacity to prevent migrants’ departures.”

“In reality, through forced returns, border externalizations, and bilateral agreements, Europe is committed to containing migration and systematically denying the right to seek asylum for people coming from Africa, while safeguarding the rights of Ukrainian refugees,” Pugliese concluded.

America’s leaders are fighting too many battles at once. They are taking on Russia, China, and DAESH as well as North Korea, Iran, and a host of militias with transnational reach. They are spreading inadequate military forces over vast distances with no control over multiple confrontations that can quickly escalate into conflagrations across every continent and ocean.

In all of the would-be superpowers, generals and diplomats think they can choose their own wars. Once they identify key adversaries, they lay out plans to contain them within well-defined boundaries—assuming they can shift resources between competing fronts to put out fires as they breakout in one region after another.

Over the last two decades, four American presidents became the most enthusiastic advocates of this approach. One after another, they spun a series of dubious and contradictory geopolitical projects—The Global War on Terror, democratizing the Greater Middle East, the pivot to East Asia, joining maritime zones to form an imaginary Indo-Pacific theater, and, through it all, the steady expansion of NATO into post-Soviet territories.

Growing complexity of global politics

As each administration struggled to exit the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan, it was obvious that U.S. strategists would have to juggle at least three regional fronts simultaneously. China, Russia, and countless Islamic movements would mount constant challenges to Washington’s efforts to shore up its superpower status. Instead of dominating a unipolar world, America had to wrestle multiple power centers with impressive resources and unpredictable intentions.

Then, just as American strategists thought they were ready to cope with the growing complexity of global politics, the Ukrainian war upended all of their key assumptions. China no longer seemed to pose the greatest threat to international order. Russia was not behaving as the second-rate player Washington envisioned, but as the assertive Eurasian power it has always aspired to become.

In the Middle East, a new nuclear deal with Iran had to be postponed and Syrian volunteers were asked to fight in Ukrainian cities.  Once again, simmering Middle Eastern tensions were fueling chain reactions with a distant crisis that Beltway thinkers viewed as unrelated.

China’s goal is to rebrand itself as a guarantor of the international system in contrast to Washington’s warnings that it is a revisionist power determined to overthrow the status quo. Chinese leaders are convinced that the tide of history is shifting the balance of power in their favor. In this light, they see the war in Ukraine as another rung on their ladder toward replacing the United States as the benevolent hegemon most deserving of global respect and leadership.

Analyzing the current situation in Ukraine, a Chinese commentator expressed precisely this sentiment. Zheng Yongnian argued that events are moving in China’s direction and that, as long as China doesn’t sabotage itself with foolish behavior, it will continue to prosper. Zheng’s caveat about reckless action might have been intended as a mere aside, but his warning can also be seen as the most important part of the picture. The world order that China claims to value is a shambles—largely due to the flagrant law breaking of all the great powers, China included.

From Abu Ghraib to Mariupol

International law is generally respected in commerce and diplomacy, but it is routinely cast aside in matters of armed conflict, human rights, and immigration. The very countries that make the rules violate them with impunity. Abu Ghraib, Xinjiang, and Aleppo helped establish the pattern long before Kharkiv and Mariupol.

Defying the law of nations is part of a wider pattern of ignoring risk that has become a typical approach in many areas of policy making around the world. Beyond refusals to limit the use of military force, we see failures to manage economic meltdowns, environmental disasters, recurring pandemics, waves of human migration, and ethnic violence. Scholars in several fields have tried to explain the striking increase in such seemingly irrational behavior.

Many views combine psychological, economic, and structural approaches. The most frequently cited causes of dysfunction include distorted information, biases of individualistic cultures, disincentives to collective action, indifference to externalities, the inherent anarchy of sovereign nations, and coalitions of entrenched interest groups. These ideas have blended into a new orthodoxy of social skepticism that refutes once dominant assumptions about rational choice and efficient markets.

Increasing distrust in governments

Unfortunately, skepticism may not sufficiently illuminate the gravity of the situation because it neglects the central issues of intention and responsibility. In much of the world, political leaders have failed so often that their citizens no longer believe they are acting in good faith to protect the public interest.

By fostering ever deeper inequalities, governments and international organizations seem to serve privileged elites at the expense of everyone else. This perception undermines the legitimacy of all ruling institutions whether they are national or global, political, or corporate.

The result is an upsurge in social movements with transnational reach demanding accountability for war criminals, tax evaders, polluters, and human traffickers. Several countries have adopted a form of universal jurisdiction permitting their courts to judge particularly heinous crimes no matter where they are committed even if the perpetrators are sitting officials.

When President Biden declares Vladimir Putin a “war criminal”, he is bending to public outrage against all leaders who flaunt international law. Biden’s denunciation requires action—not merely against America’s adversaries, but against perpetrators from his own country, both past and present.

After the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, legal immunity for international crimes narrowed in theory only to resurface in recent years as impunity in practice. This is a collective lapse of conscience among ruling elites that world citizens are still struggling to reverse.

Syria is the only Arab state to support Russia’s recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as “independent” republics and its invasion of Ukraine. Now pro-Assad Syrian forces will reportedly go to Ukraine to fight on Russia’s side in this war. All of this speaks volumes of Damascus’ indebtedness to Moscow.

Syria was one of only four countries worldwide to join Russia in recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk’s “independence”. The day the war began, President Bashar al-Assad told his Russian counterpart that “Western nations bear responsibility for the chaos and bloodshed.” Then, on 2 March, Syria joined only four other states in opposing a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion.

With Russia facing high levels of international opposition to its invasion of Ukraine, this conflict gives Moscow’s closest allies opportunities to demonstrate loyalty to the Kremlin. “For Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is a clarifying moment of who is a friend, and who is an enemy,” explained Randa Slim, the director of conflict resolution at the Middle East Institute, in an interview with Politics Today.

Assad’s support for Russia in Ukraine has been necessary given Damascus’ dependency on Moscow. “Assad is forever indebted to Putin,” Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser at the US Institute of Peace, told Politics Today. “Moreover, as a brutal dictator whose regime has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Assad has no compunction about supporting Russia in its brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

With Russia having done so much to help turn the tide in Syria beginning in 2015, saying that the Ba’athist regime’s survival is largely attributable to Moscow’s military intervention is no exaggeration.

“Syria owes almost everything to Russia (and Iran) in the last eleven years,” Marco Carnelos, a former Italian diplomat, told Politics Today. “Without Moscow’s military support it is quite uncertain that Bashar Al-Assad [would] have prevailed in the civil war that has so far ravaged country. On these political points, Syria had no other option than to recognize Donetsk and Luhansk Republic and support Russia’s position on the conflict in Ukraine.”

Carnelos told Politics Today that “maybe Russia needs soldiers better trained to the sort of guerrilla warfare that apparently is taking place in Ukraine, and that it is quite like what we have been watching in Syria all along these last years.”

According to Makki, the Syrian Arab Army has, at least for now, refrained from formally recruiting these pro-Assad fighters. He said there would have to be a presidential decree or something similar for any special dispensation. “It is most likely that the pool of recruits heading for Ukraine will be from the rougher auxiliary forces several of whom already have a past history in dealing with the Russians in Syria, such as National Defense Forces.”

Jomana Qaddour, a resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs, where she leads the Syria project, said one should be cautious before reaching definitive pronouncements given how issues surrounding the recruitment question are evolving. “Most sources indicate that [the ex-National Defense Forces] are still only in a phase of registering volunteers, and not actually transporting them to Ukraine yet,” explained Qaddour.

Nonetheless, pro-Assad Syrian fighters entering the fray could prove problematic for Moscow. “Even if these fighters are transported to Ukraine, there are serious concerns about their lack of urban combat experience since in the Syria context many of them were tasked with intelligence work or manning of checkpoints after the Syrian government would capture land – and would task them, instead of official state forces – with carrying out war crimes against subdued populations,” according to Qaddour.

Cultural and linguistic barriers can’t be overlooked. These Syrian forces, who don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian, will be unfamiliar with local conditions. Also unclear is the Russian government’s ability to financially compensate these Syrian forces, particularly mindful of the economic problems that Russia must contend with as the world’s most sanctioned country. Qaddour told Politics Today that upon considering these factors, “it is likely cheaper and more practical for them to recruit pro-Russian fighters from neighboring countries.”

An important question is, how could the transfer of these Syrian forces to Ukraine weaken Damascus’ control of territory which it has spent years fighting to retake? Carnelos said that Damascus faces a “hard dilemma: honoring its debt towards Russia but doing so it risks losing ground somewhere in its endless civil war.”

As the war in Ukraine further internationalizes, anti-regime forces in Syria might seize opportunities to re-intensify their insurgency. “To have Russia bleeding more could be the moment to reignite the low intensity warfare that the Syrian battleground has been experiencing for a few years,” Carnelos told Politics Today. “Multiplying the fronts where Russia is engaged is the best way now to further complicate its Ukrainian adventure.”

As Slim put it, “The more difficulties Putin’s army experiences in Ukraine, the more his position will weaken in Syria mainly because of diversion of leadership, manpower and military resources to Ukraine away from other military theaters Russia is involved in including Syria.”

Yet under such circumstances the Syrian regime could count on support from its Lebanese ally. “Hezbollah can send enough fighters to make up for the shortfall in manpower should the Assad regime experience difficulties in holding on to territories it has retaken,” according to Slim.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen how Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine plays out on the ground in Syria. To be sure, the war in Ukraine has given Syria opportunities to prove to Moscow that Damascus is a reliable ally which is willing to help Russia amid its worst foreign policy crisis of the 21st century. With Syria continuing to depend on Russia, demonstrating such loyalty to Putin is a high priority for the regime in Damascus. But the price that Assad must pay for his country’s close alliance with Moscow is one that will be realized in coming weeks and months as the Russian-Ukrainian war rages on.

The scenes of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war to Europe have received unprecedented western media coverage and solidarity. To be clear, there is nothing wrong in expressing solidarity with any people fleeing war and no group of people should be denied this solidarity. No one should ever become a refugee in the first place and only people who were once refugees can really feel the pain and relate to the experience of other refugees.

However, the treatment of Ukrainian refugees and victims of war has triggered comparisons with other conflicts and war-torn countries, and only reveals the limits of western liberalism and its selective solidarity towards refugees and victims of war.  In this regard, Palestine and other war-torn countries in the Middle East can speak volumes to this selective solidarity, which reveals the limits of western liberalism and its perception of who makes an authentic victim and refugee.

Soon after mostly Ukrainian refugees started flooding into Europe from war-torn Ukraine, statements of solidarity by members of the public, journalists, and politicians started pouring in. These particular statements only reflected an orientalist view of war-torn countries in the Middle East, whose people were not white or blonde enough (some of them ironically are!) to win the solidarity of right-wing political parties and politicians in Europe.

Middle Eastern refugees don’t fit the criteria

For shocked Europe, Middle Eastern refugees and people fleeing war in that region of the world were not civilized enough. Speaking of Kyiv and people fleeing the city, Charlie D’Agata of CBS news said, “This is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully, too—city,” He later had to apologize for this statement. This was said despite the fact that cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, or Aden are hundreds and sometimes thousands of years older than Kyiv and other European cities.

David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor, joined the orientalist chorus, speaking to the BBC News, and noting that “European people with blue eyes and blonde hair are being killed every day.” For Sakvarelidze, the exception is to have Europeans with colored eyes and blonde hair killed, indirectly suggesting that it is the norm, or maybe more acceptable, that people with brown eyes and dark skin suffer the same fate daily. The only difference here is that the death of “people of color” goes unnoticed or at least don’t seem to shock Sakvarelidze and Europeans.

In Palestine, too, which has the longest unsettled refugee crisis in recent history, there are many ironies and parallels that could be drawn with the refugee crisis in Ukraine. When Israel bombed Gaza repeatedly over the years 2008/9, 2012, 2014, and most recently in May 2021, western media outlets were very careful with their “both sides” language so as not to hurt the feelings of the Israeli army that was killing civilians in Gaza and levelling entire residential buildings to the ground.

Of the 256 Palestinians who lost their lives at the hands of the Israeli army in May 2021, 60 were children and 40 were women. We could hardly read a news piece in western media mentioning their names, ages, or talking about their dreams cut short, and when the New York Times did so once, the Israeli lobby lost its mind. These Palestinian victims were once again invisible, because they didn’t fit the definition of western liberalism and its selective solidarity with the victims of war and refugees.

European: definition by appearance?

Some victims of war in Palestine were actually Europeans or looked like what Europeans are supposed to look like. But they still didn’t fit the definition of a people who deserve the same level of solidarity. Palestinian-German Ibrahim el-Kilani, his wife Taghreed and their five children were massacred after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in central Gaza to which they evacuated after warnings for evacuation from the Israeli army. They rarely got any mention by the German media, which rather keeps an eye on silencing Palestinian journalists who dare to speak of Israel’s human rights violations.

On the contrary, Palestinian Ahed Al-Tamimi got unusual coverage in the western media after she slapped an Israeli soldier in 2017 who entered the courtyard of her family’s house in the West Bank. Moments earlier, her cousin was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper and a considerable portion of his skull had to be removed.

An Israeli court eventually sentenced her to eight months in prison. Her mother said the family thinks her blonde hair was her ticket to western media coverage. The same Ahd Al-Tamimi’s photo spread like fire on social media claiming that she was a Ukrainian girl facing Russian forces.

The same way it made use of all other crises in the past to bring in Jewish settlers, Israel announced plans to settle 25,000 Ukrainian Jews, along with 5,000 non-Jewish Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees who live in refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a few miles from where Israelis protested the invasion of Ukraine, observe in shock, and wait. They are waiting for the day western media will give them the same treatment that Ukrainian refugees in Europe are receiving—a treatment Palestinians also deserve.

They are waiting for the day when they can return to their homes and when Israel stops accepting refugees based on their religion. All refugees and victims of war deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and on the basis of justice and equality because no refugee’s life is less valuable than another’s—be they Ukrainian, Palestinian, or Jewish.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are fleeing from their home country due to the Russian invasion. Many are still trying to leave Ukraine, filling the routes out with cars stretching for miles. But those who could cross the borders require help.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24 and is ongoing, forcing more people to leave to the neighboring countries. The war has so far has cost tens of thousands of lives and can leave a war-torn Ukraine behind.

Valeria’s journey to becoming a refugee

Valeria, 21, a student who crossed the borders of Poland from Ukraine, is mourning the fact that she won’t return to her normal life in Ukraine. She never thought about leaving her country, even her village, when the war started. She told Politics Today, “We thought that it would be safer in villages; but it wasn’t.” Her father drove her to Kyiv, the capital, where she got on an evacuation train to Lviv on her way to Poland.

She added that “it was horrible. Too many people were on the train, there was no place. We stayed on the train for 12 hours, and sometimes we got a chance to sit on suitcases or the floor.” After she arrived in Lviv, she stayed there for a few days. Her friend drove her to the border, which she crossed on foot. Later, a volunteer took her and drove her to Warsaw. She notes that “it was quite amazing how people in other countries volunteered and helped us get to places, have food or somewhere to stay.”

EU Open-Door Policy

EU countries opened their doors to Ukrainian refugees from the first day. However, many host states are ill-prepared for this scale of mass displacement. In many countries, locals have opened their houses while many NGOs and governmental agencies are trying to protect and assist the refugees by providing for their basic needs.

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner of refugees, recently identified the refugee crisis in Ukraine as “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two.” The UN reported that there are over two million refugees according to data published on March 8, 2022. Many of the refugees landed in Poland, which shares a border of 428 km with Ukraine. According to a UN report, the government of Poland has accepted over 1.2 million refugees, and the Poles have shown a warm reception to their neighbors.

Over the past few weeks, many other countries have also accepted a significant number of refugees. Moldova, a country with a population of four million, has taken 82,000 refugees. The country bears a great importance in terms of its long border with Ukraine, which stretches for 939 km, the longest after Ukraine’s border with Russia.

Ukraine’s neighbor in the Black Sea, Turkey, is one of the countries that is watching the conflict with alarm. According to Turkey’s Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu over 20,000 Ukrainians arrived in Turkey by March 6.

At the same time, many people had to leave their homes to flee to safer cities within Ukraine. The UNHCR has reported that over one million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine. Lviv, a city located in the northwest of Ukraine, is a destination people are trying to reach. The city had a population of 720,000 people before the war. Tens of thousands of people flooded the city, especially those who escaped the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The city is a passage point for those who want to cross to Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Apart from the Ukrainian refugees who have managed to flee, many are still trying to cross the borders to European countries. Most of them are women and children since men aged between 16 and 60 have been banned from leaving the country by the Ukrainian authorities.

Since Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine began on February 24, the eastern European country has experienced death, destruction, and trauma. NATO and EU members are becoming increasingly unified in their actions against Moscow, seeking to pressure Russia into ending its assault against Ukraine.

With even Hungary, the most Russia-friendly state in NATO and the EU, vowing to not oppose multilateral sanctions against Moscow, Vladimir Putin’s campaign in Ukraine is clearly uniting European powers against the Kremlin in ways that only weeks ago were difficult to imagine.

Yet some commentators have pointed to the world’s inability to stop Russia’s intervention in Syria as a sign of what could come next in Ukraine. There are key questions to ask. How similar are Russia’s assault against Ukraine and Moscow’s operations in Syria that began in September 2015? How useful are comparisons between the two Russian military campaigns? What lessons can NATO countries draw from Moscow’s experiences in Syria when addressing the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war?

Differences

Although there are some clear common denominators, particularly given the brutality employed by the Russians, there are significant differences between the two operations that might give analysts limited reasons to see such comparisons as useful.

To begin, Moscow’s involvement in Syria came after the country’s UN-recognized government invited Russia to enter the fray. A key Russian goal was not only to help President Bashar al-Assad’s regime survive, but also to prevent the Syrian nation-state’s collapse.

At the time, even countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some western powers, which backed rebels fighting to topple Assad, agreed upon Syria’s internationally recognized borders and recognized the country as a legitimate nation-state. In Ukraine the picture is totally different, and this is an important distinction.

Moscow’s myriad interests in Syria include a desire to strengthen Russia’s military presence in the Mediterranean via its first warm water seaport and most westward military position after Sevastopol on the Black Sea. Russia’s footing in the eastern Mediterranean has given Moscow significant leverage in regional conflicts stretching from Iraq and deep into sub-Saharan Africa.

Back in 2015, the Russians were fighting NATO-backed rebel groups and Islamic State (DAESH). Russia entered Syria under the banner of fighting global terrorism, giving Moscow a greater degree of perceived legitimacy in its bombing campaigns that helped Assad’s regime regain much territory. Moscow’s partners were active in the warfare too. Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah’s forces were on the ground fighting these anti-Assad groups as well.

The Obama administration, while not supportive of Russia’s actions, was not necessarily too much at odds with it. This was partly because the U.S. was also waging its anti-DAESH campaign and Israel was comfortable with Moscow’s intervention in Syria. Put simply, there was some common cause between Russia and the West when it came to the conflict in Syria. Today in Ukraine there is no such common cause.

International Sympathy

International sympathy and opinion must be considered too. In Ukraine the Russians are fighting forces loyal to the Kiev government and Moscow’s narrative about a mission to “denazify” Ukraine is far less likely to attract international acceptance of Russian aggression.

Furthermore, except for a Turkic Muslim minority in Crimea, Moscow’s interventions in Ukraine have targeted Europeans Christians, unlike in Syria where most victims of Russian military operations were Sunni Muslim Arabs. Unfortunately, biases and outright racist tropes propelled by western media outlets and politicians have resulted in far more humanizing coverage and discussions about the human suffering in Ukraine compared to Syria.

Ultimately, it has not even been one week since Putin declared war on Ukraine and the Russian military operation is still in an early phase. The extent to which Moscow will succeed in terms of achieving its goals in Ukraine is difficult to predict at this stage.

Whereas the situation in Syria evolved in ways which were favorable to the Russians, the unique factors in play in Ukraine should give analysts reason to think that Moscow’s experience fighting in the eastern European country could fundamentally differ from the outcomes of Russia’s intervention in Syria.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth day, there has been an outpouring of compassion for Ukrainians, which has garnered widespread coverage in international news outlets. With cities around the country under siege, civilians fleeing the conflict, and hundreds of Ukrainians fleeing to neighboring Poland and Belarus, reporters from across the world have not missed the beat in covering the war.

However, as the conflict progressed, several Western news reporters could not hide away from their racist thoughts, as pointed out by various social media handlers.

“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades”, Charles D’Agata CBS news senior reporter noted on Friday, for which he subsequently apologized.

His comments received with harsh criticisms and outrage via social media, with many readers pointing out how his views led to the increasing dehumanization of non-white Christian and non-Europeans suffering from a conflict in mainstream media.

On Saturday, former Ukraine Deputy General Prosecutor David Sakvarelidze spoke to the BBC and further echoed the same virtue signaling and appealing to the average British citizen through relatability, saying, ”It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed”.

Biased Media Coverage of Refugees

In the meantime, an ITV News correspondent in Poland had similar comments, stating “This is not a developing third world nation. This is Europe.”

Media commentators, journalists, and political personalities have been accused of hypocrisy for using their platforms to applaud Ukraine’s armed resistance to Russian forces while simultaneously expressing their horror at the prospect of such a battle occurring in a “civilized” society.

The human rights violations committed against millions of people in the Middle East, pushed by authoritarian leaders, masquerading as concerned liberal reformists in the West, further highlights the racial and anti-Muslim subtext of the lives of non- European nations as unimportant because they are judged inferior and therefore “uncivilized.”

The lack of awareness of earlier European wars, from the Russian takeover of Crimea to the Serb-committed Bosnian Genocide, demonstrates the willful misrepresentation of recent European history by purposely portraying the Middle East and Muslim nations as synonymous with war.

Old wounds, new scars: African students fleeing Ukraine

The growing refugee crisis in Ukraine has reopened old scars for international students fleeing the country’s strife. Local hatred and hierarchies, and differing perspectives on what it means to be European are all being solidified.

Tens of thousands of African students are studying medicine, engineering, and military affairs in cities under siege throughout Ukraine. According to the education ministry, Morocco, Nigeria, and Egypt are among the top ten nations having foreign students in Ukraine, accounting for over 16,000 students. Thousands of Indian students are also attempting to exit the country.

The growing refugee crisis in Ukraine has reopened old scars for international students fleeing the country’s strife.

A popular trending hashtag on Twitter has been sharing the worries of Africans leaving Ukraine under the hashtag #AfricansInUkraine, where a young woman told NCA News, “We have to get ourselves to Poland, which is the other way across Ukraine…we’re not given any forms of transportation. All the forms of transportation available are prioritizing Ukrainian citizens”.

“It is sickening to know that this was even necessary. In the midst of war, devastation, and people fleeing Ukraine, some working the border have time (and the moral deficit while facing people in despair) for racism” remarked Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, civil rights campaigner Bernice King.

Racism is still alive and kicking in Europe

Indeed, xenophobic views against foreigners have remained continuously high across Central Europe over the last decade. The potential for political mobilization of these sentiments is significant and obvious to all political factions, whether they are pro-government forces, secular liberals or extreme nationalists.

According to a 2015 study issued for the UN High Commission for Refugees on ‘Press Coverage of the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in the EU: A Content Analysis of Five European Countries,’ “It is impossible to ignore the role of the mass media in influencing public and elite political attitudes towards asylum and migration. The mass media can set agendas and frame debates. They provide the information which citizens use to make sense of the world and their place within it…”

“Research in many countries has found that refugees and migrants have tended to be framed negatively as a problem, rather than a benefit to host societies…there were very few articles which focused on the need to address the push factors driving population flows”.

The apparent double standards in coverage of the Ukraine war does not lessen the anguish and pain of Ukrainians fleeing to safety and protecting their sovereign territory. It only spotlights those who have been subjected to war and turmoil for a far longer length of time and do not fit the “blue-eyed” mainstream accessibility standard.

Until media analysts, commentators, and journalists report on conflict in Europe in the same way they do in the Middle East, without compromising the facts of each individual conflict but appeal to the viewer’s humanitarian nature, as they did with the Ukraine crisis, will increase confidence in mainstream channels.

International law is the branch of law that regulates how states will act in their bilateral relations, drawing the boundaries of their rights and responsibilities. However, the absence of effective mechanisms to enforce the rules of international law, especially against powerful states, apparently renders them ineffective. The recent Russian invasion of Ukraine is a good example, showing the limits of implementing international law. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine since 2014 did not prevent the occupation of Ukrainian land and eventually an all-out war between the two countries.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine declared its independence in 1991 and was ruled by governments closer to Russia until 2014. However, as a result of popular movements, a pro-Western and pro-European Union government came to power in February 2014. The Russian response to this was critical. The Parliament of Crimea, then an autonomous region of Ukraine, decided to conduct a referendum under the influence of Russia via Crimeans of Russian origin, and events ended up with a Russian invasion and the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

In April 2014, in the Donbas region of Ukraine, which is located in the east of Ukraine and densely populated by people of Russian origin, two political entities named “Donetsk People’s Republic” and “Luhansk People’s Republic” proclaimed their breakaway from Ukraine. This step foreshadowed what was to come. Eight years later and in February again, Russia wanted to replicate the annexation of Crimea. Russia launched a large-scale military invasion of Ukraine on the morning of February 24, 2022 – an operation that continues to this moment.

Does Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine have any legal ground?

Russia perceives Ukraine’s getting closer to NATO and the West as a major security threat, and argues that Western European countries and the U.S. intervene in Ukraine’s internal politics in order to bring pro-Western governments to power. According to Russian claims, this is anti-democratic and violates human rights, and therefore Russia voices its motive for the invasion as ending the government of Ukraine’s “anti-democratic” rule.

Going even further, Russia claims that the United States and Western European countries have been trying to create a nuclear Ukraine on its border. Overall, it is well-known that Russia perceives Ukraine as part of “its” territory and believes that it should “return” to Russia.

Russia sent its troops initially to eastern Ukraine under the argument of deploying a “peacekeeping force” upon the invitation of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. This was immediately followed by a large-scale military invasion. Russia’s main argument for sending military troops is the request for “self-defense” by Donetsk and Luhansk.

Can the UN deter Russia?

In order to justify its recognition of self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia has asserted that the Ukrainian government has committed “anti-democratic acts and human rights violations.” However, this is not legitimate justification for violating the territorial integrity of a state.

The principle of “respect for the political independence and territorial integrity of states by all other states” is a basic principle of international law articulated in Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations accepted by all states today. For this reason, all direct or indirect activity by Russia is a clear breach and violation of this basic principle.

It was rather foreseeable that the UN Security Council, in which Russia has a veto power, cannot act against the Russian invasion. In this situation, wherein the Security Council cannot decide to keep the peace, the UN General Assembly can recommend measures against Russia by taking a decision to “unite for peace” as in the case of the Korean War. This could help further strengthen the existing sanctions against Russia.

With or without a UN General Assembly resolution, other states can use armed forces to support the exercise of Ukraine’s right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which regulates the right to self-defense and provides that this right can be exercised by the attacked state alone or with the active assistance of other states. That is to say, with or without a UN resolution, all other countries, including NATO members, can provide assistance, including military, to Ukraine as they see appropriate.

The remaining issue is how to stop the fighting. This war could be stopped either via the options presented by international law to states or via diplomatic channels in the form of negotiations between the relevant sides. The choice between these two is a political matter. In any case, the next step will be determining and prosecuting all those who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Finally, it’s been put to rest. The passionate and polemical debate between those of true faith and the heretics; equality and exclusivity; those who believe in freedom and those who oppress. If anything could sound the moral death knell of Europe’s purported universalism and nonsenses their ethical absolutism, it is their treatment of refugee children. The awful abuse by those with unrivalled power upon the powerless – that too, children, is the surest indicator of venality.

Whether it’s the sexual abuse of unaccompanied children throughout Europe or the recent forcible seizure of children in Sweden, something truly unholy is happening. What kind of sick, depraved system relishes in inflicting further suffering on the grief-stricken? Pity the weak in the lands claiming liberty. More specifically, the manner in which Sweden is precariously confiscating refugee children from their biological parents is outright shocking. Not just in the grotesque manner that children have been treacherously taken away from their parents, but in the cruel, sanctimonious justifications by Swedish Social Services.

High-sounding, grand glutinous words that boldly advocate for child welfare are parroted to claim the moral high ground and then weaponized to pulverize their tender lives. Imagine the utter hypocrisy of justifying mental anguish upon already troubled, scarred families and their children, all of whom fled war. This is a criminal absurdity. Without due care, thought or consideration, the Swedish state violently disrupts the lives of some of the most alienated segments of their own society, and justifies inflicting violence with reckless allegations of parental impropriety. Could anything be more perverse and misshapen? Villainy wears many masks, none more dangerous than virtue.

Critically, to further explore this crime of stealing innocence from war-scarred refugee children, it is important to judiciously deconstruct the claims that Sweden makes. How does it justify such unscrupulous behavior? In other words, what is the rationale for taking children away from their loved ones? To begin, Sweden justifies these extreme steps based on promoting their own self-image of being ‘champions of children’s rights and by claiming “Sweden has very strong legislation in order to protect the welfare of children.” Of course, nothing more to talk about then. Let’s just take their word for it.

The Swedish state – through its child welfare services  – the ‘Social,’took possession of a newborn baby immediately after delivery.

With such logic, it is inconceivable that the Swedish social system is not altruistic, trustworthy and reliable. However, when probing the reasoning behind child seizures, the opposite is true. Stealing children is often on unfounded, flimsy allegations by third-parties, unverified checks of domestic abuse, or dubious contentions of extremism. The Swedish state – through its child welfare services  – the ‘Social,’ rapidly intervenes without a process of mediation.

In one alarming case, they took possession of a newborn baby immediately after delivery. What is especially unbelievable is that any basic level of understanding of the principles of social work and child welfare undisputedly cautions against taking children away from their families and allows so only under the strictest situations and as a ‘last resort.’

A few further problematic issues further stand out: (a) What is the record of Swedish social services when seizing children; (b) How effective are they in providing a loving, caring home to the seized children; (c) Are the religious, moral rights of the parents being respected in raising the stolen children as Muslims? First, the situation for unaccompanied refugee children in Europe, and state-seized refugee children in Sweden specifically, is abysmal.

A report, based on research conducted by Human Rights Watch in Sweden from January 25 to February 8, 2016 identifies key shortcomings in the Swedish child welfare system. As a result of these shortcomings, some children “are not receiving the care and attention they need and to which they are entitled.” In other words, the evidence by independent investigators is the Swedish child welfare program suffers from serious drawbacks. Second, there are horrific stories of child abuse occurring in the homes of the children by their adoptive guardians.

The situation for unaccompanied refugee children in Europe, and state-seized refugee children in Sweden specifically, is abysmal.

In fact, on October 16, 2021, Swedish TV Channel aired a segment on the sexual abuse of Syrian refugee children, including instances of rape of children by their Swedish legal guardian. Also, there are at least, two cases of Syrian children, Yasmine and Dina, who were forcibly taken away from their families and later committed suicide.

The suicide of those two children should raise alarm about the repercussions of the Swedish Social horrific process. So much for the unquestionable standards of Swedish child welfare. Third, the seized children rarely are placed in the care of families that recognize, or even respect, the rights of their families to have their children raised according to their own faith and ethical values. Is this not basic in a democracy which recognizes and allegedly champions pluralism? Again, no concern for the Muslim faith and heritage of these children.

Altogether, the Sweden government’s reasoning is not convincing. In fact, it is eerily familiar to the residential school system in Canada that led to unspeakable crimes against Native Canadian children who were seized by the state. Similarly, the horrible situation of child welfare services in Sweden curiously ignores the following: clear directives to only institutionalize children as a last resort; ensure the safety of refugee children; account for the horrific suicide of refugee children and prevent the alarming cases of rape and drug abuse by refugee children taken away from their families.

All of this, unequivocally, indicates that that Sweden’s policy on seizing refugee children is illegal, immoral, and untenable. And what we are witnessing in the new emerging global political, socio-economic, and cultural transformations is not just the making of a counter-world order. Rather, it is the unmasking of the utter hypocrisy, of countries like Sweden, who advocate for rights of children in order to erase them.

Syrian Kurds who fled Afrin in 2018 with the YPG/PKK are now returning to Afrin from the Shahba region, controlled by the YPG/SDF, and the Syrian regime-held Aleppo and Erbil.

Kurds massively fled Afrin when the Turkish army and the Syrian National Army (SNA) first entered the district at the beginning of 2018. However, according to the Independent Kurdish Coalition of Syria (KKS), more than half of the Kurds who fled from Afrin to Tel Rif’at and villages in the Shahba area and Aleppo have returned.

An estimated 151,000 Kurds had fled the area according to the UN in 2018, more than half of them returned and most of them did so within four months of fleeing. “When people realized the brigades that came to Afrin were not jihadists, unlike the PKK media had been telling them, they started to return. It’s better to live in your own house, even with some trouble than staying in a tent,” KKS members explain.

On the other hand, at the beginning of 2016, an estimated 100,000 Arabs had fled from the Arab town of Tel Rif’at and its surroundings after the YPG/PKK took control of the area with Russian air support. However, none have been able to return to their home as of yet.

According to the KKS, which aids the Kurds return, the PYD, the political wing of the YPG obstructs their departure. In recent months, there has been a rise in the number of returnees to Afrin. Members of the KKS state, “The ones who fled together with the YPG to the Shahba region have to pay a bribe to be able to return.” They go on to say, “Of course, the bad behavior of some SNA groups is also not encouraging, but the situation has improved from the chaos in 2018, since the local Kurdish councils have been installed there.”

Azaad Osman, KKS chairman in Afrin, works with Ahmad Misto, a Kurdish leader of al-Jabha al-Shamiya, the largest SNA brigade. “We first tried to prevent people from leaving Afrin, then we organized big convoys to bring people back to Afrin in 2018. We help civilians who face problems here,” Misto says.

The KKS office is a central place in Afrin for Kurds asking for help. I visited the office several times in October 2021 and I saw this firsthand. Azaad Osman is also on the PKK’s hit list, and was imprisoned by the Assad regime for five years in the notorious Sednaya Prison. He used to have a business in Turkey and returned from there in 2018 after the PKK’s removal.

During my latest trip in October 2021, I had a chance to talk to Kurds who took the short, expensive route and some who took the longer but cheaper one. They told me: “Kurds in the Shahba area, between Afrin and Aleppo, who don’t have the financial means to return, can’t do so. They are, for example, farmers, and need to cultivate the land to have an income.” They warned, “The short route via Kemar is long and steep. It’s impossible for elderly people.”

“I consider the PYD/YPG the enemy of the Kurdish people due to their inhumane actions against us such as kidnapping children and forced military conscription.”

Misto explains why he joined al-Shamiya: “I consider the PYD/YPG the enemy of the Kurdish people, because of their inhumane actions against us – like kidnapping young children, forced military conscription, and forcing these children to join the military to fight the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian people, creating national strife in Syria.”

“I organized peaceful demonstrations against the regime and after al-Jabha al-Shamiya entered Aleppo, I joined them as a trainer, because I used to be a kung fu trainer. I trained their members until the liberation of Afrin. During and after its liberation, al-Shamiya leadership asked me to enter the Kurdish villages under their control, to support people, and offer them aid and services to open schools. I am both a son of the area and of al-Shamiya; with al-Jabha al-Shamiya, I will help the area to leave discrimination behind.”

Misto goes on to say, “Afrin was exposed to dictatorship and injustice, and we as revolutionaries of Syria are Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, all the components. I see the Turkish intervention as the liberation of Afrin because of the YPG’s injustice towards it.”

I asked KKS members how the situation in Afrin is nowadays and was told that “it varies from area to area, from good to average to still bad.” Giving further detail about the current state of affairs, they told me, “In the areas controlled by al-Jabha al-Shamiya it is good… in the areas controlled by Ahrar al-Sharqiya (from Deir Ezzor) it is bad. Al-Jabha al-Shamiya are our neighbors, from Marea and Azaz. We have mixed marriages of Arabs from Azaz in Marea to Kurds from Afrin, for instance.”

At their headquarters outside Azaz in November 2021, Abu Ammar, one of the leaders of al-Jabha al-Shamiya, told me, “In Ma’batli, the whole population is Alawite Kurds … 95% are back. Ma’batli is under the control of al-Jabha al-Shamiya. We have 10 houses that belong to Kurds, and the owners came back.”

By now, other families are living in houses that were evacuated in Eastern Ghouta. These new inhabitants were brought to Afrin by buses. For example, they lived in tents and upon seeing empty houses for several months, they moved in. Abu Ammar adds, “So we went there and told them, “You have to leave.’” They started to organize demonstrations, claiming ‘’al-Jabha al-Shamiya wants to expel us by force” and they spoke to the media.

With hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to enter Europe since 2015, a common European Union policy on refugees has become an undeniable necessity. However, the EU has failed in dealing with the refugee crisis particularly in terms of carrying the burden equally among all member states. The crisis continues to this day and is dividing Europe above all other issues.

As no solution has been found by the EU countries, the crisis leaves thousands of refugees trapped at borders. The most recent example is the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe at the border between Belarus and Poland, where thousands of refugees are waiting to cross into Europe.

In recent years, it has become more and more difficult to enter Europe through Italy and Greece, and refugees have been searching for alternative routes into Europe. Poland, a member of the European Union, has become the new doorway to the EU, a route to build a better future.

Refugees are using this comparatively new migration route by way of Belarus. Refugees sell all their property in their home countries in order to afford the journey expenses to the Belarus border, while others are allegedly encouraged by the government of Belarus and given tourist visas and plane tickets to Minsk. As a result, in the last few months, nearly 2,000 refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, have been trapped between Belarus and Poland.

Desperate refugees have tried to breach the Polish border with Belarus, and Polish troops have used water cannons and tear gas to stop them. Meanwhile, Poland has significantly increased its border security. Even though some managed to make it into Europe, most refugees tried to survive in these dire conditions until November 17, 2021, when they were moved into a refugee camp provided by the Belarusian government at the Kuznica-Bruzgi border crossing, only a kilometer from Poland.

The conditions in the shelters are very harsh with limited access to water, food, and medicine. The weather is freezing: below -10 degrees Celsius. There is no social distancing in light of the COVID19 pandemic and people claim to get one meal a day. Toilets and showers are housed separately from the shelters, and around 1,200 refugees live and sleep on blankets. Some have even lost their lives in these freezing conditions. At the same time, since Poland has strengthened its border fence, it seems nearly impossible to enter Europe.

Yet another political game is being played between Russia and the EU via Belarus. While Russia supports Belarus in the migrant crisis, it denies the involvement of Belarus in the migration cirsis and blames European countries for imposing sanctions on Belarus.

Even though by inviting migrants to enter the EU, Belarus is using them as a political tool, these desperate people flee their countries not because of Lukashenko’s invitation but because they have no other option. If they did not flee to Belarus, they would flee somewhere else. Rather than focusing on the humanitarian crises and on possible solutions, countries are blaming one another for political gains while the EU continues not to accept migrants.

At this very moment, there is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding at the EU border and a critical question remains unanswered: what is going to happen to the migrants on the Belarus and Poland border? What will happen to them if they refuse to return to their home countries?

Tareq Alaows is one of the initiators of the Seebrücke (1) Initiative and a member of Flüchtlingsrat (2) Berlin. In February 2021, he launched his candidacy for the Green Party to represent Oberhausen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Although there was a public interest in his candidacy, he decided to withdraw due to threat calls that he received against him, and people close to him. Politics Today interviewed Tareq Alaows about his experience as a Syrian refugee in Germany and the political participation and representation of refugees in Germany.

Q. Could you please briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your journey as a Syrian refugee to Germany?

I left Syria in July 2015. After traveling to Lesbos, Greece through Turkey, I took the Balkan route. I took most of the way to Germany from Athens on foot, and I finally arrived in the German city of Dortmund in September 2015. I had studied law back in Syria, and for more than five years now, I work as a jurist, who is engaged in providing legal aid for refugees during their asylum and residency processes in Germany. I am a political activist too and one of the initiators of the political movement called the Seebrücke. I am still a part of the coordination circle and serve as the press secretary.

Q. When and how have you become politically active in Germany?

Well, I haven’t become politically active ever since I arrived in Germany. I furthered my work in the humanitarian field, which I had started much earlier in Syria and continued here in Germany. But the central issue of my work was no longer human rights in Syria, but human rights in Germany. I took the cause for people, who came here as refugees.

I had no other choice than to become politically active. When I arrived here, I saw that our legal rights as refugees were not being properly applied in practice. I was detected in a military center in the middle of nowhere. When I wanted to buy something, I was supposed to walk five kilometers to the nearest supermarket. There were no buses or trains or any other means of transportation. After two months, I was transferred to Bochum. There, I was supposed to live in a basketball hall at a school with sixty other people. Families, men, women, children, all of us, were in one room, and we were not allowed to do anything that we wanted.

I lived in this situation, where we could not even enjoy our basic human rights for six months and I could not stand it anymore. I had to react to this situation and started an action. I organized the people in our accommodation and set a protest camp in front of the City Hall.

Q. Quite naturally, you demanded to live in dignity. How did German authorities react to this? What was your experience with the first protest?

We managed to make our demands heard thanks to our protest in front of the City Hall. Thereafter, we were organized under Refugee Strike Bochum and continued to be active in the negotiations. We observed the implementation process of our demands in regard to the asylum policy in Bochum in the following years. We started to have regular meetings with the City Hall. There, we did only talk about our problems, but also provided solutions. The administration in the city hall was responsible and saw that we, as refugees, were a part of the solution. In the end, we learned a lot from each other.

Q. To protect your basic rights and demands, you have democratically organized and taken a political role at the local level. But what has motivated you to take an active part at the federal level?

During my political activism at the local level, I recognized that everything I said reached the German politicians in my city better than what the German activists or the political parties in the opposition were saying. Because I was talking about my life and the very conditions that I was living in. I think they could not argue against it.

And I see that I am not an exception. I know thousands of refugees from different countries, as well as people from Germany, who are doing a great job here in uplifting the refugee voices and working to maintain the human rights for refugees.

I just have been lucky to have the media attention, which helped shed light on and bring solutions to the issues we -as refugees- encountered. But the question eventually transformed into how could we represent these persons, who have arrived in this society?

I was eventually transformed from being a normal person running for candidacy to a target of racism and hate speech. People who target me are not targeting me as Tareq Alaows but target a person of color with a refugee background, a person who showed the courage to claim his rights to be represented in the German parliament.

I just run for the elections, and this is a democratic right. At the end of the day, it will be German voters’ decision to elect or not to elect me. But the right-wing party viewed it differently. They were afraid of me being elected in a democratic way and they did everything to stop me.

Q. What did exactly happen, and you decided to withdraw your candidacy?

I was receiving hundreds of comments and messages on the internet, that said that they knew where I am living, where I am walking, and where I am eating, and I had to be careful. And I saw that most of the messages were written in the “we” form, and not in the “I” form. It was like groups in the background and not like single persons. There were two people in my team, who were deleting those racist comments and messages on social media and documenting things that are relevant for my safety for the police.

I just run for the elections, and this is a democratic right. It’s the German voters’ decision to elect or not to elect me. But the right-wing party viewed it differently.

Most of the messages were anonymous and we could not tell by whom they were sent, or which persons or groups were doing it, so, there was nothing we could do. For me, it was a very dangerous situation, and nobody could calculate consequences. I had to protect my family and people working with me. I had no guarantee for my safety. So, I had to withdraw my candidacy in the elections. But as a jurist and political activist, I still defend the basic human rights of refugees.

Q. What was the reaction of the Green Party, or of other political parties, to this incident?

Both the Green Party and other democratic parties learned something from this experience. The Green Party, of which I was a candidate, accepted my withdrawal from candidacy and drafted a document in order to avoid a possible future incident as such and to establish a mechanism to counsel and support victims of such racisms. I think every political party in Germany must start debates about racism in politics and work for developing awareness.

Q. Your experience, then, highlights that there are serious obstacles concerning the participation and representation of minorities in political life in Germany. How do you think it could be overcome?

This could be overcome only by empowering those people in politics, who are victims of racism and encouraging them to get involved in democratic processes. Because the only way to fight against racism in politics is to have more people with a refugee or a minority background in politics. We can talk about democracy if every group in our society, including the minorities and the newcomers, are represented. Otherwise, it is nothing but a mock debate. We need to have more democratic environments and dialogue between members of the host society and the newcomers.

We also need to work to create awareness among the youth via programs for young persons, immigrants, or non-immigrants and let them be involved in these political debates. Above all, we need to put it in a context; when we talk about refugees we talk about humans.

Importantly, all these debates and dialogues need to be translated to a legal basis. We need more clear and strict laws against racism and extremism both on online platforms and in real life. Racism is not an opinion, it is a criminal act, and we have to name it and fight against it.

Although I decided to cancel my candidacy for the German federal elections of 2021 and continue my work in the humanitarian field, I am optimistic that political parties in Germany have learned something from that experience.

Europe as a whole is not ready to normalize relations with Damascus, but some countries are exploring their options with their eyes closed.

A few European Union member states have mixed opinions about normalization with Bashar Alassad and their policies reflect that.

Denmark and Germany started sending refugees with criminal records back to Syria declaring that Damascus is a safe place to live.

But that may not be enough to meet the requirements of the Dublin Accords which protect refugees from being sent back to their home countries if they face possible detention or revenge attacks because of their political views.

Even though discussion about normalization with Alassad has become a geopolitical trend, the reality is that the situation in Syria is unstable and unpredictable.

European countries, along with the United States, and a long list of Arab countries, are unable to solve the huge humanitarian crisis in Syria, and some would rather revert to the pre 2011 revolution status quo.

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians amassed on European borders.

The most prominent example of this policy was the European migration deal struck with Turkey in 2016. Europe offered Turkey monetary incentives to prevent the massive flow of migrants across land and sea towards Europe. At the time, hundreds of thousands of Syrians amassed on European borders and lined back roads and footpaths across the European continent with hopes of starting new lives.

They were escaping a Syria that was in decline but already unlivable in many ways.

Even before the revolution individual rights were heavily restricted, free market conditions were abhorrent, opportunities for youth were limited, long droughts negatively impacted agricultural production, intelligence agencies were loyal to the Alassad family, and the dictatorial tendencies of Bashar Alassad were no mystery to Syrians inside and outside the country.

Many countries conveniently ignored the fact that the Daesh terror group was coordinating directly with Bashar Alassad’s intelligence agencies and many of the members, including mid to top level leaders, were released from Syrian prisons only to directly join the terror group. This was a major turning point in the progression of the revolution, since the regime was able to convince European countries that the revolution was actually a threat to them because Daesh represented the kinds of ideas that the antigovernment protesters carried.

It was Alassad’s intention to force Europe’s hand using the fear card from the very beginning of the revolution. Recently forced into retirement, then Grand Mufti of Syria Ahmed Bedreddin Hassoun, threatened to send suicide bombers to Europe in 2011 if western countries intervened in Syria.

Years later, multiple Daesh inspired terror attacks took place across Europe. Then in 2018, German parliament members of the far-right political party, Alternative for Germany, visited Damascus, and met with many people including Hassoun. They wanted to find a way to send Syrians back and they needed to declare the country safe.

Despite mounting evidence of human rights violations going back decades, some European countries are more comfortable looking the other way.

The most recent evidence of Europe turning a blind eye to the horrors of Alassad family is the return of Bashar’s estranged uncle Rifaat.

Rifaat was exiled from Syria by his brother Hafez, Bashar’s father, in 1984. While in Europe, Rifaat embezzled money and was investigated in both Spain and France for related violations. But his criminal record began years before he went to Europe.

Rifaat Alassad worked hand in hand with his brother Hafez to conduct the coup that put Alassad family in power and according to most informed sources directly oversaw what is now known as the “Hama massacre”.

In 1982, Rifaat Alassad, or the “Butcher of Hama”, was the commanding General who carried out the siege of Hama where according to some estimates up to 40,000 people were killed. The military operation put to an end a religiously motivated political uprising that started in 1976 by the Muslim Brotherhood.  Two years later, Rifaat failed to overthrow his brother Hafez and went into exile, settling in France.

Rifaat Alassad recently escaped France on a private jet avoiding a four-year jail sentence for embezzlement but more importantly he was also able to escape possible prosecution resulting from an ongoing investigation in Switzerland about his role in committing possible war crimes in Hama.

Some European countries are using normalization with Alassad to put pressure on Turkey, especially Greek Cyprus and Greece.

It remains a mystery how Rifaat was able to flee France unhindered and why Swiss authorities were unable to impress upon the French the severity of the allegations against him. For Rifaat, Bashar, and Europe – the uncle’s return to Syria carries significant implications.

Bashar allowed his uncle to return to build comradery with the Alawite community which holds Rifaat in high regard and have grown frustrated with Bashar. Using his uncle as a counterbalance to his cousin Rami Makhlouf who spent the past two years pleading with Bashar via social media to stop expropriating his personal assets.

But more importantly for Bashar, he wanted to prevent his uncle from cooperating with European authorities revealing family secrets implicating Bashar, his narco-trafficking kingpin brother Maher Alassad, or others, in a long list of crimes, both past and present.

While some European countries are happy to see Alassad family consolidate its criminal enterprises and reign in the vast network of beneficiaries relieving Europe from having to face off with the mafia-like family in European court rooms; other European countries are using normalization with Alassad to put pressure on Turkey, especially Greek Cyprus and Greece.

Lord Alf Dubs was a former child refugee who escaped Nazi-occupied Prague on the Kindertransport in 1939 and was one of 669 Czech children saved by English stock dealer Nicholas Whinton. He went on to become an MP and a member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, as well as a passionate activist for refugee rights and a patron of a number of refugee-related organizations. Ayan Mohamed Ali spoke with him about his personal connection to the refugee plight and how his experiences with the Kindertransport initiative can assist influence UK government policy on refugees crossing the English Channel.

Q. Could you give a quick overview of your background in connection to the present refugee crisis for our readers who may be hearing about you for the first time?

I came to Britain as a child, an unaccompanied child refugee in 1939 on a Kindertransport. I’ve been active in politics for a long time. I was the director of the Refugee Council for some years, and I was in the House of Commons. I was active with refugees then, and in the House of Lords, I became more active with refugees. More recently, I got an amendment, so in 2016, which the government eventually had to accept, for getting unaccompanied child refugees to Britain.

That was passed, and several 100 got through under that amendment. I got to another amendment that family unions continue, where possible, under the European Union treaty, even after we left the EU, and that passed both houses 920 – 17, but the government deleted it in 2019. So, there are very few safe routes for child refugees, and certainly none from Europe at the present time.