The Humanitarian Crisis in Syria

Syria with the capital city of Damascus is one of the countries located in the Middle East region, Syria directly adjacent to Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Syria is one of the countries that experienced humanitarian disaster due to Civil war that occurred until this moment. The UN says that Syria has become a terrible battleground. The Syrian war continues and heats up.

As reported by the CNN website, at least more than 20,000 Syrian refugees have crossed and fled from Syria to Turkey via the Tal Abyad border in hopes of protecting security from the endless Civil War between Kurdish fighters and the ISIS extremist militant group. The refugees are leaving their war-torn country through the Turkish border post, Akcakale, overlooking Tal Talat City in Syria now controlled by YPG(Gibney and Loescher, 2010). 

The Syrians decided to get out of the Syrian country and flee to neighboring countries and even Europe because the Syrian state where they live has become a terrible war arena, they see family members killed by sadistic weapons fired or their homes that have been flattened to the ground by the bomb. 

The onset of this humanitarian crisis in Syria was an anti-government rally in March 2011. The peaceful protests that took place were part of the Arab Spring wave that grew bigger and broke out after the government troops responded to the violent protests. The rebels were consumed emotionally and rose up against the regime. A number of soldiers defected and civilians took up arms. Until now it has taken many victims due to the civil war of the conflict The split between secular and Islamist fighters, and between ethnic groups.It has been four years since the conflict in Syria, but now it is estimated that more than 220,000 people were killed and most of those killed were civilians. This increasingly heated war caused much of the infrastructure of cities in Syria to be destroyed and many human rights violations to the point of horror. Ironically, basic needs such as food and medical care for victims of the conflict are far from adequate(International refugee crisis, 2014). 

Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, in 2011, Europe has witnessed a large increase in the number of refugees, which European countries do not manage to control at the moment. Europe has already exhausted its ability to receive and place forced migrants, but the number of them is increasing day by day. According to Eurostat, during the period from April to June 2015, 213.2 thousand people expressed asylum, which is 85% more than in the period April-June 2014. In September 2014, over 173,000 settlers reached Europe via the Mediterranean Sea, and in October of the same year the number of visitors was more than 218,000, but the exact figures are unknown, as some may have passed through the border unnoticed (Darke, 2011). 53% of all refugees are Syrians, the second large group of forced migrants is Afghans, there are about 18% of them, followed by refugees from countries such as Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, and others .

Syrian Refugees Fleeing to Other Countries and Europe

Thus, the situation in some countries of the Near and Middle East forces citizens of these countries to leave their homeland in search of security for themselves and their families, especially against the background of the unprecedentedly intimidating activities of the terrorist group Islamic State.According to (Atlani-Duault, 2008) a significant problem is that many of these refugees are not forced migrants but are economic migrants seeking stability in Europe. The Dublin agreements, according to which asylum-seekers, must remain in the territory of the EU country where they were located first, are not being observed in the current migration crisis, and it is this country that is fully responsible for granting asylum. If a migrant has left the EU country to which he originally entered, another country has the full right to deport him. Due to the fact that the flow of refugees was too great, the Dublin agreements were suspended, as migrants needed to be distributed somehow (European solidarity with the victims of humanitarian crises, 2002).

In September 2015, the EU countries established a special quota program for the distribution of 120,000 refugees to facilitate the reception of refugees in countries such as Italy, Hungary and Greece. The issue of the distribution of refugees was complicated by a number of contradictions between the European countries themselves, which were divided into two camps: those who are ready to receive refugees and those who opposed the deployment of migrants in their territory.  

This research seeks to use a questionnaire to collect information on the humanitarian crisis facing Syria and the problems facing Syrian refugees from a refugee’s perspective. The questionnaire will be of use in collecting qualitative data for this research. Secondary data from newspaper and other major news network that have extensively reported on the Syrian refugee situation shall be used in this research. 

The conflict in Syria created one of the worst humanitarian calamities of the century. Even the humanitarian agency Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam called the Syrian crisis the greatest humanitarian crisis of human age on earth. More than 11 million innocent civilians who are victims of this conflict are suffering greatly. They were forced to flee away from the territory of conflict to save their lives. 

Quoted from ACTNewsThe number of Syrians displaced in Jordan (629,245 inhabitants), Lebanon (1,172,753 inhabitants), Egypt (132,375 inhabitants), Iraq (249,726 inhabitants), and Turkey (1,938,999). Syrian refugees fleeing to northern Iraq have more than a million refugees and sadly they are stuck with the conflict in Iraq. 

Living Conditions and Basic Needs of Syrian Refugees

Thousands of Syrian refugees only hope to find peace in other countries even as Europeans try to make dangerous journeys, they travel for miles at night to avoid snipers or get caught by war soldiers who force civilian youth to go to war. they crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece, hoping to find a better future in Europe. 

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the refugee status of 100,000 Syrians in the first four months of the war took place. Then 800,000 Syrian civilians were registered as refugees in April of 2013. Then less than four months, that number continues to grow to 1.6 million people(McHugo, 2015). There are now 4 million Syrians scattered across the region, making them the largest refugees in the world under the UN mandate. The UN predicts there may be 4.27 million Syrian refugees by the end of 2015. A worst exodus since the Rwandan genocide 20 years ago. 

The official camp for the refugees they occupy is Jordan Za’atari, built in 2012. At that time Jordan Za’atari became the main destination of about 81,500 Syrians living there. The barren desert was packed with white tents, an emergency shop lined up on the main road and sports facilities in the field and schools available for children(Phillips, n.d.).. A number of camps for refugees were built by the United Nations joint government, such as in Turkey and Jordan. But many refugees leave the camp or they build their own emergency camps that feel more comfortable. But the facts mentioned because the camp facilities are far from adequate and also already crowded by refugees the majority of refugees live outside the camp(Suffering and despair, 2001). This is because the camp facilities, in addition to full of human, also camp facilities are far from adequate, to be a torture itself if trying to survive. 

According to our interviewee he  personally witnessed the magnitude of this crisis and the many challenges it brings to Europe. More than half of the refugees from Syria are children, most of them younger than 12 years old. Several thousand of these children are not accompanied or separated from their relatives, many of whom are not registered and are at risk of being stateless. It is estimated that at least half of the more than 1 million refugee school children in neighboring countries in Syria do not currently have the opportunity to exercise their right to education. And although many of them are eager for study, they do not have enough money to start school or continue their schooling. 

Challenges Faced by Children and Adolescents

For refugees who do not get refugee tents, they have to find money to rent their residence regardless of whether the leased buildings are nearly collapsed, the most important they can use as a place to live. They work, albeit illegally, in Jordan and Lebanon, receiving inferior wages that are often insufficient to buy their basic necessities of eating and drinking. Meanwhile, Syrian refugees in northern Iraq are slightly better, where Kurdish residents may work, although it is still limited due to the conflict that is also occurring there. Refugees in refugee camps are still troubled by the lack of clean water and inadequate sanitation at emergency camps, this has led to cholera and polio diseases lurking at any time(NAPIER, 2016).. Especially medical services are also far from expectations. In some areas with the largest refugee population of the refugees only get 30 liters per day, the water shortage has reached the level of emergency. As a result of this Syrian conflict many children and adolescents who should be able to denounce education for their better future even be destroyed, and the period an uncertain front, those who live in camps who cannot attend school and have no money to transport to their schools. In the refugee camp there has been an emergency school because so many of the IDPs learned some emergency schemes to divide the learning activities into 2 shifts. According to the UN, more than half of the Syrian refugees are under the age of 18. Most have been out of school for months, even years. Children are undoubtedly in confusion, lack of security, even fear with the life they have to face. In this age children are forced to find work, some even found in begging circumstances in Turkish cities and take care of their families in a state of suffering(Suffering and despair, 2001).

 The number of unidentified deceased grows, either because they disappear, because their bodies are in an advanced state of decomposition or because they did not carry identity documents. This means that tens of thousands of families of lost immigrants live in limbo, without knowing the fate of their loved ones the report describes.

A lot of information is missing: It is still difficult to establish figures on migrants who die while migrating from Syria to the UK. The bodies lost, buried in common graves, abandoned in deserts or under the waves make the task of counting them discouraging and always incomplete. 

The European Refugee Crisis

The UNICEF Report identified several threats that vulnerable youth face:

The arrivals include both people in need of international protection, as well as victims of trafficking and immigrants in search of opportunities. Another worrying fact is the increase in unaccompanied and separated children making this trip: more than 25,000 in 2016, representing 14% of arrivals, more than double the previous year (Heyse, 2016).

The trip to the UK is particularly dangerous, having recorded in 2016 the highest number of deaths in the journey so far. Of the 5,096 refugees and immigrants who have been reported as dead or missing at sea, 90% traveled by sea to Italy, which resulted in one death for every 40 people who crossed(Rathmell, 2014).

About 181,436 people arrived in Italy in 2016, of which 90% did so by boat from Libya. The arrivals include both people in need of international protection, as well as victims of trafficking and immigrants in search of opportunities. The two main nationalities were Syria (21%) and Eritrean (11%). Another worrying fact is the increase in unaccompanied and separated children making this trip: more than 25,000 in 2016, representing 14% of arrivals, more than double the previous year.

The results are based on an in-depth analysis of the nearly 9,000 responses of the survey carried out in the last ten months along the eastern Mediterranean routes, at the arrival points in southern Italy and Central. Migrants provide strong evidence of the predatory behavior of smugglers and traffickers as well as environments in which trafficking and related forms of exploitation and abuse thrive.  

The survey includes six questions that are potential indicators of human trafficking or practical exploitation, such as being forced to carry out work or activities against their will, the performance of work or activities without obtaining the expected payment and that the migrant is retained in against their will (by entities other than government authorities). For the central Mediterranean route, 49% of respondents reported having been held in a place against their will at some point during the trip in order to request a ransom. Libya, a country that experiences prolonged instability, is the location in which the vast majority of cases of abuse are reported. Refugee-related costs have increased since 2015 across Europe, the report reads: in UK in 2016 it was just under 22 billion euros 

Responsible for the scientific part of the report is the Walter Eucken Institute, London, UK. “UK was and is a country of immigration. He adds that to prove it, it is not necessary to go far back in history, but simply to observe the flows of refugees and immigrants from the At the end of the Second World War, he stressed that “experiences show that decisive for people to be able to successfully enter society is their labor integration (Suffering and despair, 2001). 

The Failure of the Dublin Agreements

Also in relation to the issue of “delinquency”, which undoubtedly arouses emotions, Feld advises to see the details, adding that, in general terms, delinquency today is much lower than 20 years ago, according to official figures, the percentage of foreign suspects of having committed crimes went from one third in 1993 to 40 percent in 2016. But, he notes, this statistic also includes violations of the right of asylum and aliens: crimes that UKs cannot commit(Fighting Saddam in Iraq and Isis in Syria, 2017). 

In any case, he adds, it cannot be simply stated “that the influx of refugees has resulted in an essential increase in the number of crimes in the last two years.” However, he emphasizes, it is possible to observe great differences by analyzing which countries come from The eleven percent of the non-UK suspects come from the Maghreb countries, “even though they only represent two percent of immigrants and refugees.” Immigrants and refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, on the other hand, commit on average fewer crimes than people from other countries(Suffering and despair, 2001).

The expert says he does not see the need to set a maximum limit for the reception of refugees. “It’s a fictitious debate.” But he recognizes the right to debate politically about the need to set limits. “How it is implemented is a political decision, not ours.” The focus must be placed, however, on integrating “in a really sensible way” the refugees in UK, emphasizes the expert.Most of the refugees came to Europe by sea, but some paved the land route through Turkey and Albania. 

Even the winter did not stop the flow of people. According to the UN refugee agency, since the beginning of 2016, 82 636 people have arrived in Europe by sea.

Questionnaires on Syrian Migration

How dangerous is this trip?

The International Organization for Migration says that there are more than 3 700 dead, or 0.37%, per million people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea safely and reached the European shores. Most of them died in the summer months. 

The most deadly month for migrants was April, when a boat with 800 migrants on board near the coast of Libya overturned. One of the reasons for the misfortune was that the boat was crowded with people.

Who takes the most requests for asylum? 

Following Hungary, the border was closed by Sweden, with 1667 petitions for 100 thousand people. 

The Special Quota Program for the Resettlement of Refugees in Europe

For comparison: Germany has accepted 587, and Great Britain – 55 applications for every 100 thousand people. The average figure for Europe was 255 people per 100 thousand.

How is Europe going to respond?

Tension is also growing within the EU, it is connected with the disproportionate distribution of migrants that the countries where refugees arrive are Greece, Italy and Hungary.

Britain refused to assume obligations on quotas, but, according to the British Interior Ministry, in 2015 more than 1,000 refugees from Syria were deployed in the country. David Cameron said that in the next five years Great Britain will receive another 20,000 Syrians.

How many applications has been approved?

Despite the fact that a large number of applications were submitted, refugee status was granted to a much smaller number of people. In 2014, European countries confirmed the status of 184,665 refugees. In the same year, more than 570,000 migrants applied for refugee status. It should be borne in mind that the procedure can last quite a long time, and those who received the status this year could apply in the past.

One conclusion is clear from the data: the more time a migrant spends in transit, the more vulnerable they are to exploitation and / or trafficking. In fact, 79% of the surveyed migrants who had spent at least one year in a country other than the country of origin had experienced one of the exploitation practices in the past.

The UK government has already submitted eleven reports on immigration. The last one was published under the impression of the high number of refugees.  member of the directory of the Maltese, on the occasion of the presentation of the results of the investigation, why he made his own report, given that there are already so many officers. “Because it is unique, its conclusions, set out, are the result of independent scientific analysis on the immigration issue, on the one hand, and on the other, of the long-standing experiences of the Maltese Aid Service in assisting refugees.  

References

Atlani-Duault, L. (2008). Humanitarian aid in post-Soviet countries. London: Routledge.

Darke, D. (2011). Syria. Peterborough: Thomas Cook.

European solidarity with the victims of humanitarian crises. (2002). Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.

Eliot, G. (2016). The mill on the Floss. New York: Open Road Integrated Media.

Fighting Saddam in Iraq and Isis in Syria. (2017). Iuniverse Inc.

Gibney, M. and Loescher, G. (2010). Global refugee crisis. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.

Heyse, L. (2016). Choosing the lesser evil. London: Routledge.

International refugee crisis. (2014). [Place of publication not identified]: Palgrave Macmillan.

NAPIER, C. (2016). WAR IN SYRIA,. [S.l.]: FORGOTTEN BOOKS.

Rathmell, A. (2014). Secret war in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris.

Suffering and despair. (2001). Washington: U.S. G.P.O.