ISIS, a militarist Jihadist group formed in April 2013 and entered the chaos in which rebel groups and religious extremistsfought against Syrian president Assad’s dictator regime. ISIS built strongtotalitarian Islamic caliphate and quickly became the most violent andsuccessful extremist organization of the world. All side committed horrible warcrimes, using chemical weapons, executions and repeated civilian attacks. A third of Syrian people have been displaced withinSyria. Over two hundred thousand civilians have been killed and around fourhundred thousand people have been displaced and over four million have fled thecountry.
The vast majority of them reside in camps now in the neighboringcountries. This paper will discuss recent scholarship and journalism concerningSyrian refugee crisis in neighboring countries and their effect on hostcountries beside effect of immigration on children and treat of Gulf countriestoward Syrian refugee crisis. Salam Kawakibi in a study did for the MigrationPolicy Centre at the European University Institute in Florence, states thedispute between regime and armed opposition that committed atrocities resulted inmassive departure of people from the targeted towns. His discussion of theissue was extensive and I will focus on it a lot. Thousands of refugees living in the border regions sought asylum inTurkey, Jordan, Libya and Iraq. He emphasizes that the situation of refugeesdepends on the conditions of the host country. For instance, in Lebanon Kawakibistates militia forces who are close to the Syrian regime try to threaten andcontrol these refugees and he mentioned that their financial situation is dire.
Unlike Lebanon, Jordan has set up camps for 100,000 refugees in the desert. Thelife conditions there are poor and Jordan’s capacity to host refugee population has reached its maximum. Moreover, the author then talks aboutrefugees in Turkey that are being discriminated against by the people of theregion; however, the Turkish government has taken responsibility for theirshelter and protection. The author adds Europe has received thousands ofSyrians. Many sources discuss about anti-Syrian protests in Turkey. ??BBC news agency states hundreds of people haveclashed with Turkish police in Istanbul during a protest against the risingnumber of Syrian refugees. Youths shouted anti-Syrian slogans, some of thearmed with sticks and knives the clash began when a Turkish property owner wasmurdered by a refugee according to a report.
Similarly, Telegraph UK newsand Thomas Siebert writes in National World AE; the massive influx ofrefugees from Syria has led to rising public anger in southern Turkey withallegations of rising living cost, the undermining of Turkish businesses, andpressure on jobs. Many sources discuss the effect of displacementon children. Author Khaled Al Masri at Children of Syria site writes more than700,000 Syrian refugee children are unable to attend school in neighboringcountries Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. (UNICEF regional office) Due toeducational organizations are overloaded and cannot deal with the extra studentload.(childrenofSyria) UNICEF USA organization also talks about effect ofcrisis in Syria on children with the heading title “The Crisis in Syria, FourYeas On, 14 Million Children Now Affected “. Syria is the world’s largestproducer of refugees.
Four million are on the run; half are children reportsUNICEF USA organization. Over eightthousand children have crossed Syria’s border unaccompanied by adults. In thefour years of conflict, children have lost their home, school and communities.Their life has been threatened by violence, brutal winters and malnutrition(unicefusa.
org). In a survey Leah James, Annie Sovcik, FerdinandGaroff and Reem Abbasi did at RefugeesStudy Center in Oxford University in Jordan reveals refugee children arehopeless. Eight thousand children participated in this survey 15,1 percent arefeeling afraid, 28.
4 percent are angry 26,3 percent are hopeless and 18,8 areunable to carry out daily activities. The organization European Council on Refugees and Exile, Michael Pearson, HollyYan and Arwa Damon in CNN, Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN); ahumanitarian news agency and Aljazeera news agency discuss about borderrestriction of some countries to Syrian refugees. The main theme in thesesources are after hosting thousands of people in recent months Syria’sneighbors made restrictions on the entry of the refugees. These sources say thegovernments argue the flood of refugees had a negative effect on theireconomies, in some cases lead to increasing insecurity. They want extensiveinternational support to continue such high numbers of refugees. Theseneighboring countries are Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
In addition,Aljazeera news agency writes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hasindicated people cross the border illegally from Serbia will be detained andthe requests for trying to enter Hungary from Serbia will be rejected. TheSerbia police have detained almost 10.000 people for illegally crossing.
On the other hand, Michael Martinez writes in CNN newsagency and Luke Harding, Philip Oltermann and Nicholas Watt reported from theGuardian Germany is the largest European country to accept request for asylumin EU. Germany could take 500,000 refugees annually for several years, said theGerman Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. While UK has taken few refugees around166from 2014-2015. Also, the Guardianreported thousands of ordinary Germans have volunteered to help refugeesarriving daily. Subsequently the United Nation Higher Commissioner of Refugee(UNHCR) talks about the economic impacts of refugees in host countries. Ashighest concentration of refugees is in poor countries, their presence leads todemand on natural resources, educational and social services that may causepressure on their economics. Conversely the 2016 republicanpresidential candidate, Donald Trump in an interview with fox news said; if heis elected, he will expel Syrian refugees.
He stated “we have our own problemswe are not supposed to help them while other rich Arab countries are nothelping refugees”. One another issue discussed many sources is why are not rich Gulfcountries taking in Syrian refugees. CNN reports most European countries hasstruggled to deal with Syrian refugee crisis but no Syrian refugees have beenresettled in Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman andthe United Arab Emirates, countries with significant financial and politicalpower. Gulf countries states they have given millions of dollars to the UnitedNations to help the refugees.
They stress that Syrians have entered Gulf Stateson visas and stayed. Additionally, Amnesty international indicated not onlyGulf states not helping victims of war but also high-income countries likeRussia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea have offered zero resettlementoptions. In addition to this point Euro news, states the Gulf States are notsignatories to the United Nations Convention on Refugees of 1951 that definesthe refugee states and the duties and rights of governments. In addition, answers the question whyrefugees want to go Europe which Europe has the best laws for them. Inaddition, Gulf States do not show good intention toward them.
