After global criticism, US President Barack Obama this week committed to taking in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year
A sand sculpture pays tribute to a three-year-old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, who died after a small rubber boat capsized as it headed for Greece. (Photo: AP)
The United Nations has called for a global response to the growing migrant crisis. “We should have a European response as part of a global response,” UN Special Representative for Migration and Development Peter Sutherland said, adding “every country must be held up to the spotlight.”
However, in practice, the brunt of hosting refugees lies on neighbours mostly and this is the case for the Syrian refugees, some 4.1 million of whom have left their war-torn country since the start of the conflict in 2011.
After global criticism, US President Barack Obama this week committed to taking in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. The US has only taken in 1,500 refugees since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
However, according to Amnesty International, even high-income countries such as Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Russia have not offered any resettlements to the Syrians. “Like with previous refugee crises (Hungary, Bosnia, Kosovo), countries outside the Middle East and Europe can and should increase their refugee admission quotas enormously to accommodate this emergency flow of refugees,” says Dr Jacqueline Bhabha, professor and research director of the practice of health and human rights at Harvard University. The Mumbai-born American academic is also a lawyer and also teaches at Harvard Law School.
“If a small country like Lebanon can host over 1 million refugees, countries of the size and wealth of the US, Canada and Australia can host several hundred thousand each. This would be in line with their obligations under the UN convention on the status of refugees.” The treaty defines who is a refugee, their rights and the legal obligations of states. Canada and Australia too have come in for criticism over their refugee intake. Australia has now announced it will accept 12,000 refugees from Syria on top of its current humanitarian intake quota.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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