NPR: That Little Syrian Boy: Here's Who He Was (Warning: Graphic)

[visionary]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34198967

Speer's daughter and the Syrian refugees

 

Hilde Schramm - the 79-year-old daughter of Hitler's architect, Albert Speer - has spent a life campaigning for peace, fighting racism, and supporting Germany's green movement. This year she decided to help two Syrian refugees, but they have ended up helping her in return.

 

Admiring the apple, peach and pear trees flanking her beautiful Berlin villa, Hilde Schramm suddenlystops me. She's spotted a stranger inside her home.

She guesses he's Syrian, and chuckles. "That's really nice," she says, genuinely pleased.

 

"My Syrian lodgers bring friends. They always know people coming from Syria. They stay here while they decide what to do next."

Schramm has been sharing her home, her kitchen and bathroom for eight months now with two Syrian refugees, Nizar and Ahmad.

"Whoever has space for a refugee, should take one home," she says, batting away my suggestion that this takes a certain amount of courage.

"The decision was very simple," she tells me. "We had space here and everyone agreed to it."

 

As she guides me through her elegant yet simply furnished home, our conversation competes with the creaky wooden floors. The house is a labyrinth of rooms and wooden double doors, stretching over four floors.

 

I ask her how many people live here and there's a curious pause before she breaks into a smile. She just doesn't know.

"It's a really large house," she says. "We have to live as a different kind of community to try and fill it."

 

Schramm bought this house in 1968 with her husband and another couple. The idea was to live as a community, supporting one another, and bringing up children together. They even started a kindergarten in the garden house. At its peak, there were about 16 adults and six children living here. They've come and gone over the decades, but Schramm remains.

 

Schramm shares her floor of the house with the two young Syrians - and even she has been surprised quite how well the first few months have worked out.
"I was afraid there would be too much to organise, that I would freak out and think it was a burden," she says.

[Zguy28]

Franklin Graham Pens Open Letter Urging Barack Obama To Establish 'Safe Zones' Inside Syria to Help Displaced Refugees - See more at: http://www.gospelherald.com/articles/57759/20150910/franklin-graham-pens-open-letter-urging-barack-obama-to-establish-safe-zones-inside-syria-to-help-displaced-refugees.htm#sthash.MJlVmMdL.dpuf

Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham recently penned an open letter to President Barack Obama urging him to establish "safe zones" inside of Syria, as millions of citizens continue to be displaced amid civil war and an ongoing threat of terrorism.

In the letter, which was posted to Facebook on Thursday, Graham cited his four decades of experience in helping refugees in Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, in asking for specialized zones that would help millions of refugees.

The 64-year-old president and CEO of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse then warned of what could happen if no action is taken.

"This would allow Syrians fleeing from areas of conflict inside the country to find safety, food, medicine, and shelter, and stay within their borders, nearer their homes, until a political and military settlement has been reached," Graham wrote."Most refugees that I have worked with over the years desire to eventually return home."

He continued, "As we have all seen, fleeing to another country adds great risk to their lives and exposes the refugees to exploitation by unscrupulous people who deal in human trafficking."

 

 

[Zguy28]

10 Ways you can help Syrian refugees

 

http://imb.org/updates/storyview-2934.aspx#.VfMqsEZi9yE

 

By Mark Kelly

 

A mind-boggling 10.8 million Syrians have been driven from their homes by violence in their towns. War widows are trying to care for their families. Husbands despair of feeding their children because they can’t find work. Children lose hope for the future because they can’t attend school. Infants and the elderly are at risk in bitter winter temperatures. Aid agencies don’t have the resources to provide adequate food, water and medical care.

 

Precious lives and eternal destinies are at stake.

 

Southern Baptists are helping thousands of these desperate families, both inside Syria and in neighboring countries. Our partners are focused on providing food parcels and hygiene kits, in addition to other assistance, but the needs far outstrip the resources being provided by supporters in the United States.

 

Rest at link

[visionary]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11856640/Benedict-Cumberbatch-records-charity-message-for-Syrian-refugees.html

Benedict Cumberbatch records charity message for Syrian refugees

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/13/us-europe-migrants-austria-idUSKCN0RD09P20150913?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Thousands more migrants on their way into Austria: police

 

Austrian authorities said they were expecting another wave of migrants and refugees coming over the border from Hungary on Sunday, after a brief lull in arrivals gave them a chance to re-stock reception centres.

 

Austria struggled last week to cope with thousands of people entering its territory, almost all of them on their way to Germany. The train link to Hungary has been closed since Thursday in a bid to stem the flow.

 

Only 50 people crossed the border early on Sunday morning, but Hungarian authorities had said more were on their way and numbers could climb to 500 an hour, a spokesman for the Austrian police said.

 

Based on recent experience, the Austrian authorities were expecting 6,000-8,000 new arrivals through the day, the spokesman added.

 

Thousands of refugees, many of them fleeing the Syrian conflict, are crossing into Hungary, an eastern outpost of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, every day.

 

Many are traveling on to the continent's more prosperous west and north in what is Europe's worst refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

 

The police chief for Austria's Burgenland province, which borders Hungary, told ORF radio on Saturday a lull in arrivals had let the authorities clear backlogs and clean reception centers, but he expected more arrivals soon.

 

Hungary plans to seal its southern frontier with a fence by Sept. 15. Its police said 4,330 migrants were detained on Saturday, most of them near Roszke, on the border with Serbia.

[visionary]

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/german-rail-says-halts-train-traffic-austria-12-154702399.html#Mmpo594

German rail says halts train traffic to and from Austria for 12 hours

 

Germany's rail service on Sunday halted train services with Austria for 12 hours, after Berlin announced that it was reinstating border controls as the authorities buckles under the strain of a record refugee influx.

 

Rail links between the two neighbours will be effective until 5 am (0300 GMT), Deutsche Bahn said. Its announcement follows a similar move by the Austrian rail service to suspend trains between the countries.

 

 

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2015/Sep-13/315060-slovak-interior-minister-says-will-veto-quotas-at-eu-meeting.ashx?utm_content=bufferd9e01&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Slovak interior minister says will veto quotas at EU meeting

 

Slovakia will veto any decision on mandatory quotas for distribution of migrants among European Union member states at a meeting on Sept 14, Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said on Sunday.

 

Interior ministers from the 28 member states will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Monday afternoon to review proposals for distribution of migrants put forward on Wednesday by Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

 

"I have the government's and the parliament's mandate to veto any questions concerning the quotas because they don't make any sense, they are directly pointed against the refugees and don't solve the crisis in any way," Kalinak said in a televised interview.

 

https://refugeecrisisinhungary.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/breakdown-is-imminent-says-the-policeman-who-breaks-the-rules-and-speaks-to-a-journalist/

Breakdown is imminent, says the policeman who breaks the rules and speaks to a journalist

 

I’m sitting in a pub in Csongrád County with P. He is a policeman, he spent the past few weeks mostly in Röszke. We met through a friend. P. specifies that I must not reveal his name, his rank and his station. He is not scared as such, but the rules prohibit police personnel to talk to journalists. His reason to break the rules is simple: he wants to share his and other police officers’ point of view in the current situation.

 

 

[visionary]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34242346

David Cameron visits Lebanese refugee camp

 

David Cameron has visited a Lebanese refugee camp amid the crisis triggered by war in neighbouring Syria.

 

Mr Cameron, who is making his first visit to Lebanon as prime minister, met a family in a camp in the Bekaa Valley who are due to be flown to the UK.

He said: "I wanted to come here to see for myself and to hear for myself stories of refugees."

 

The UK will accept up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years, Mr Cameron told MPs earlier this month.

 

He has appointed Richard Harrington as minister for Syrian refugees to ensure the arrivals are given a "warm welcome" in the UK.

 

"I want to focus on how we help Syrian refugees here in Lebanon, in Jordan, how we make sure we discourage people from making this dangerous journey to Europe but instead we take people from these camps and we make them welcome in the United Kingdom, in our country," Mr Cameron said.

 

"We make sure there are homes for them to go to, schools for their children, a warm welcome in Britain."

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/migrants-stream-into-hungary-as-fence-rises-on-serbian-border-1442107194

Migrants Stream Into Hungary, as Fence Rises on Serbian Border

 

https://twitter.com/AFP

BREAKING EU approves military action against Mediterranean people smugglers: sources

4:19 AM

[FrFan]

Kadhafi warned Europe during his March 7th 2011 interview for Turkish TV. It is just happening.

 

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/14/refugee-crisis-eu-governments-set-to-back-new-internment-camps

Refugee crisis: EU governments set to back new detention measures

 

EU governments are expected to back radical new plans for the detention of “irregular migrants”, the creation of large new refugee camps in Italy and Greece and longer-term aims for the funding and building of refugee camps outside the EU to try to stop people coming to Europe.

 

A crunch meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels, called to grapple with Europe’s largest refugee crisis since the second world war, was also expected to water down demands from the European commission, strongly supported by Germany, for the obligatory sharing of refugees across at least 22 countries.

 

A four-page draft statement, prepared on Monday morning by EU ambassadors before the ministers met, focused on “Fortress Europe” policies amid increasing confusion as a number of countries set up border controls in the Schengen free-travel area that embraces 26 countries.

 

The draft statement, obtained by the Guardian, said “reception facilities will be organised so as to temporarily accommodate people” in Greece and Italy while they are identified, registered, and finger-printed. Their asylum claims are to be processed quickly and those who fail are to be deported promptly, the ministers say in the draft statement.

 

“It is crucial that robust mechanisms become operational immediately in Italy and Greece to ensure identification, registration and fingerprinting of migrants; to identify persons in need of international protection and support their relocation; and to identify irregular migrants to be returned.”

 

The Europeans are to set up “rapid border intervention teams” to be deployed at “sensitive external borders”. Failed asylum seekers who are expected to try to move to another EU country from Greece or Italy can be interned, the statement says.

 

“When voluntary return is not practicable and other measures on return are inadequate to prevent secondary movements, detention measures ... should be applied.”

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/14/refugees-confounded-merkel-close-german-borders?CMP=share_btn_tw

Refugees confounded by Merkel’s decision to close German borders

 

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, has cut a chequered figure this summer: scorned for taking Greece to the wall, and praised for welcoming large numbers of Syrians to Germany. But nowhere and at no time has she been more of an enigma than she was in Vienna’s central station on Monday where crowds of refugees struggled to reconcile how the same “Mama Merkel” had opened Germany’s borders one week, and closed them again barely eight days later – leaving those at the station stranded.

 

“She said she will bring big boats from Turkey to rescue Syrians!” said Maria, a Syrian who fled the bombs of Damascus six weeks ago. “And now why has she closed the border?” asked Maria’s daughter.

 

For a week, refugees had been able to freely board trains to Germany from Vienna – but Sunday’s developments returned the status quo to how it was in late August. Station staff said on Monday that the rail border had reopened at 7am, less than a day after Germany had stopped all inbound rail services. But the ticket machines would not let people book journeys to German destinations. And while some had managed to get fares from the ticket office, it was unclear to many people whether the border had reopened or not.

 

Pacing around the concourse with her two children, Galbari al-Hussein saw the constant changes in border policy as a cruel game played at the expense of vulnerable refugees. “We’ve travelled so far, thousands of kilometres, and now they’re closing the borders,” said Hussein, who reached Vienna barely a week after escaping Islamic State territory, hidden in an unfamiliar niqab. “Is it open, is it closed? It’s very unfair.”

[gbear]

I am somewhat baffled by the scale of the responses.  On one hand, I read about millions of refugees.  Then on the other hand, I see the responses from countries taking in a few thousand refugees. It is very hard to get to 10.8 million (number of refugees) when we are dealing with them a thousand to maybe ten thousand at a time.

 

It just feels like a disconnect when it comes to the size of the problem.  At some point, we must all be human before we are Christian, American, European or...  This fear mongering to defend inaction is a disgrace.

[thebluefood]

A lot of folks like to reference Leviticus when they want to tell people what they can't do, but I seldom hear this brought up (Chapter 19, verse 33-34)

 

"When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt..."

 

God bless the folks in Europe who have opened their homes and their lives to these refugees.

[visionary]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34249955

BBC reporters on both sides of the Hungarian-Serbian border

 

Hungarian security forces have blocked off a railway track which is the main informal crossing point used by migrants entering Hungary from Serbia.

 

The move came as Hungary completed its security fence along the border, and announced tough new measures will come into force from midnight, including arresting illegal immigrants.

 

BBC reporters Christian Fraser and James Reynolds report from both sides of the border.

 

https://twitter.com/ChristianFraser

Serbia saying it will deploy its army to stop Hungary deporting refugees back to Serbia!! So people who have fled war stuck between armies!!
5:42 PM

 

 

https://twitter.com/JRhodesPianist

To give us an idea of the scale of the crisis, here's a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.
6:55 AM

 

 

 

Apparently Cameron continued his visits to Syrian refugee camps today, this time in Jordan.

https://twitter.com/ZaatariCamp

https://twitter.com/And_Harper

Great to have PM David Cameron in @ZaatariCamp today. @DFID_UK one of our biggest supporters #jo @Refugees @malhawari
11:56 AM

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0RD0P420150916?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Hungary shuts EU border, taking migrant crisis into its own hands

 

Hungary's right-wing government shut the main land route for migrants into the European Union on Tuesday, taking matters into its own hands to halt Europe's influx of refugees.

 

An emergency effort led by Germany to force EU member states to accept mandatory quotas of refugees collapsed in discord.

 

Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed for European unity after one of her ministers called for financial penalties against countries that refused to accommodate their share of the migrants, provoking anger in central Europe.

 

A Czech official described such threats as empty but nonetheless "damaging" while Slovakia said they would bring the "end of the EU".

 

Under new rules that took effect from midnight, Hungary said anyone seeking asylum on its southern border with Serbia, the EU's external frontier, would automatically be turned back, and anyone trying to sneak through would face jail.

 

At the border, migrants barred from continuing their long journey north towards a new life in Germany chanted as the sun went down, and one held up a banner saying: "Mama Merkel, please help us!"

 

Families with small children sat in fields beneath the new 3.5-metre- (10-foot-) high fence, topped with razor wire, which blocks entry for migrants to the former communist country.

 

"Strike. No food. No water. Open this border," a woman had written on a child’s dress that she held above her head.

 

Migrants who tried to apply for asylum in a transit zone of metal containers were swiftly turned away. Macruf Suhufi Abdi Omar, a Somali, told Reuters he had been refused asylum barely an hour after he gave his fingerprints.

 

Hungarian officials said they had denied 16 asylum claims at the frontier within hours and were processing 32 more. Police had arrested 174 people for trying to sneak across the border.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/15/refugees-scramble-fortress-europe-hungary-seals-borders

Refugees scramble for ways into Europe as Hungary seals borders

 

For a few fleeting minutes, there was some humanity in the darkness. It had turned midnight on the Serbian side of the Hungarian border, the time that Hungary had said it would close its borders for the final time to refugees. A fortified border fence had finally been finished. At the fence’s weakest point, where refugees had for weeks walked into Hungary along a set of disused railway tracks, police had blocked the way with the carriage of a freight train.

 

Yet even after the clock struck 12, Hungary seemed to soften, letting a few hundred stragglers enter its territory via a legal foot-crossing that lies in Horgoš, a mile to the west of those train tracks. At 10 minutes past midnight, there were still families running, limping and panting up the road that leads to the border gate. More than 160,000 people had crossed this line so far this year and no one wanted to be the first to be turned away.

 

“I’m hoping, hoping, hoping,” said Badr, a 47-year-old Syrian engineer, as he neared the final stretch. “We lost everything in Syria – homes, friends, and family. We need to pass through this border.”

 

So began a day in which Fortress Europe began to pull up the few drawbridges still open. First Hungary blocked its southern border with Serbia, putting into action its much-heralded fence, declaring a state of emergency in two southern counties, and arresting dozens of people for attempting to cross the border under new laws unveiled last week by the prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

The collective display demonstrated European leaders’ continued belief that the biggest mass migration since the second world war is a possibility to be avoided, rather than a certainty to be better managed.

 

But they appear to have reckoned without the desperation of people like Badr. Following him into Hungary were mothers with babies on their backs and fathers with children strapped to their fronts, all of whom have faced far worse than a closed border. There were grandmothers from Iraq and grandfathers from Afghanistan. There were Syrians fleeing the remains of Aleppo and Palestinians running from Yarmouk, a generation after their parents first fled from Israel to that now-desolate Damascus suburb. There was a man in a wheelchair. And an Iraqi on crutches – 22-year-old Mostafa from Baghdad, one of the very last few to heave his way across the border. Asked how he felt to have got there in the nick of time, a breathless Mostafa said: “Happy.”

 

And then the gates clanged shut. At around 12.20 am on Tuesday, Hungary finally blocked the main route used by refugees to reach the safety of the European Union, leaving about 100 people stranded in the dark. Later in the night, Hungarian police erected a flimsy second fence behind the main barrier of the crossing, just in case anyone hadn’t cottoned on.

Perhaps they hadn’t. A few metres away, Radwan – a 38-year-old printer from Yarmouk, and one of the first to be turned away from Hungary – struggled to compute what was happening. Having brought two babies and three older children all the way from Syria, he was trying to find a new home just a few decades after his parents’ generation fled from Israel. Now even Europe had shut its doors to them.

 

“We’re Palestinian-Syrians, where else are we supposed to go now?” Radwan asked, cradling his three-year-son Abdallah, who hasn’t spoken since leaving Syria two weeks ago. “We’re coming from destruction and killing. I shouldn’t have to take five children all the way here for us to be shut out here.”

 

Radwan and his wife Mayada slumped on the tarmac next to the gates of Hungary – exhausted, shocked, and unsure what to do next. But of one thing they were certain: even this setback would not put off a Syrian population fleeing from a fate far worse. “This won’t stop people,” Mayada said, rocking her youngest baby to sleep. “For example, my sister and her husband and their three children will leave Syria soon. I have told them that it is difficult, but they will still come.”

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/253760-durbin-us-should-accept-100000-syrian-refugees?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Durbin: US should accept 100,000 Syrian refugees

 

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Tuesday that the United States should accept 100,000 Syrian refugees, far outpacing the number the administration said last week that it will accept.

 

“What the administration has posed is modest: 10,000. Too modest,” the No. 2 Senate Democrat said. “As far as I am concerned, I believe we should be prepared to accept 100,000—100,000 Syrian refugees.”

 

Durbin's remarks come after White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the United States will accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees during the 2016 fiscal year that starts next month.

 

The senior Democrat’s comments echo those of 72 House Democrats who signed a letter to the White House calling for the United States to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees. 

 

Durbin said that he visited one camp in Turkey that housed 10,000 refugees.

 

The humanitarian crisis in Syria has been under the political spotlight since a photo of a drowned three-year-old Syrian boy went viral earlier this month.

 

The Illinois Democrat referenced that photo, saying that “when I think of Syria and this humanitarian crisis, I think of the photo of that little boy.”

[visionary]

https://mobile.twitter.com/bouckap/status/644396798321270784

https://mobile.twitter.com/bouckap/status/644397003301064704

Detained refugees in Hungary in outdoor cages.

7000 refugees entered Germany Wednesday.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/644401312159895552

[visionary]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/18/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0RI0CV20150918?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Losing control of migrants, Croatia closes Serbia border crossings

 

Croatia has closed seven of eight road border crossings with Serbia after complaining of being overwhelmed by an influx of more than 11,000 migrants who evaded police, trekked through fields and tried to sneak into Slovenia by train in a march westwards that is dividing Europe.

 

Only the main Bajakovo crossing, on the highway between Belgrade and Zagreb, appeared to be open to traffic on Friday, while neighboring Slovenia stopped all rail traffic on the main line from Croatia after halting a train carrying migrants on the Slovenian side of the border.

 

Migrants have been streaming into European Union member Croatia for two days, their path into the bloc via Hungary blocked by a metal fence, the threat of imprisonment and riot police who fired teargas and water cannon on Wednesday to drive back stone-throwing men.

 

There were desperate scenes at a railway station on Croatia’s eastern frontier with Serbia, where thousands were left stranded overnight under open skies.

The European Union has called an emergency summit next week to overcome disarray in the 28-nation bloc.

 

Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic warned on Thursday that Croatia would close its border with Serbia if the flow of migrants continued at the same rate, saying his country was full to capacity.

 

The president of Croatia told the military to be ready to join the effort to stop thousands of people criss-crossing the Western Balkans in their quest for sanctuary in the wealthy bloc.

 

Late on Thursday, police announced they had banned all traffic at seven border crossings. “The measure is valid until further notice,” police said in a statement.

 

Serbia's main highway north into Hungary is already closed by Hungarian riot police on the border.

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/09/refugee-crisis-voices-streets-germany-150917065620167.html

Refugee crisis: Voices from the streets of Germany

 

Frankfurt, Germany - An unprecedented number of refugees have been welcomed into Germany in recent months with as many as one million expected to arrive by the end of the year.

 

Despite being hailed globally for its "willkommenskultur" - or culture of welcoming people - there have been media reports of attacks on asylum centres and demonstrations calling for new arrivals to "go home".

 

With 50,000 people crossing the border in just one week, some analysts say Germany is starting to feel the pressure, despite a public outpouring of support for refugees.

 

Al Jazeera went to the streets of the multicultural German city of Frankfurt to find out what people are saying about the refugee crisis - and if they think their government has done the right thing.

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d884ee0226f14eea8b2d97ac7d87b8ed/migrants-face-less-welcome-more-danger-past-waves-did

Migrants face less welcome, more danger than past waves did

 

The people streaming into Europe are the faces of a world on the move, more so now than at any other time in recent history. Last year, the United Nations announced that the number of displaced people worldwide had surpassed 50 million for the first time since the end of World War II. It's now nearly 60 million.

 

Yet migration is also a story as old as man — and in this case, woman and child. Here is a snapshot of today's migration to Europe in the context of history and geography.

[skinsmarydu]

Hubby is jealous that I get everything I need on one football site. Thank you, visionary.

[visionary]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34291648?ocid=socialflow_twitter

Migrant crisis: Neighbours squabble after Croatia U-turn

 

Waves of migrants seeking to enter the EU from the south-east have been shunted from one border to another as governments disagree over the crisis.

 

Croatia reversed its open-door policy after 17,000 arrivals since Wednesday. It is now sending thousands of migrants north, angering Slovenia and Hungary.

Hungary, which is putting a fence on its border with Croatia, is reportedly sending new arrivals on to Austria.

 

Two EU crisis meetings will take place next week.

 

Many of the migrants are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Thousands began entering Croatia from Serbia this week after Hungary closed its Serbian border, and cut off the previous route north.

 

Croatia had initially said the migrants would be welcome, but on Friday it said it was overwhelmed and would not become a "migrant hotspot".

 

Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said that more than 17,000 migrants had arrived since Wednesday morning and that 3,000 had now crossed into Hungary.

 

 

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2015/Sep-18/315773-vatican-takes-in-first-syrian-refugee-family.ashx#.VfvzCXH1oWQ.twitter

Vatican takes in first Syrian refugee family

 

Responding to a call from Pope Francis for every Church parish to house refugees, the Vatican City said Friday it had taken in a family that had fled the war in Syria.

 

The family -- a father, mother and their two children -- came from Damascus and are Melkite Greek Catholics, a Christian church with close ties to the Roman Catholic Church.

 

The Vatican said in a statement that the family, which was not named, arrived in Italy on Sept 6, the day Pope Francis made his appeal for European parishes to open their doors to refugees. The four Syrians have since asked for asylum.

 

"According to the law, for the first six months following the request for asylum those seeking international protection cannot work. During this time, they will be helped and accompanied by the Parish of Santa Anna," the Vatican said.

 

The Vatican City, a micro state which sits in the heart of Rome, contains two parishes -- Santa Anna and St. Peter's Basilica. The Vatican said it could not yet provide any information about a second family that is expected to be housed by the St Peter's administration.

 

Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, have swept into Europe this year in an influx the 28-nation European Union has struggled to absorb.

 

Looking to help ease the crisis, the Pope urged some 120,000 parishes across Europe to take in one family each. His appeal has drawn a mixed response so far.

 

Some parishioners have been openly hostile to the idea of welcoming in Muslims. Monks in a village in Slovakia had to withdraw an offer to house Christian Syrian refugees after locals baulked at the idea.

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/19/refugees-croatia-hungary-borders-europe?CMP=share_btn_tw

UN warns European unity at risk as borders close to refugees

 

Europe’s biggest refugee crisis in 70 years atomised into a chaotic series of border confrontations and diplomatic disputes this weekend, as crowds of refugees were blocked from passing through a number of crossings in central Europe, prompting the UN to warn that the concept of European unity was at risk.

 

Hungary sent armoured vehicles to its border with Croatia, while Slovenian police sealed several crossings after Croatia attempted to offload tens of thousands of refugees who are using it as an alternative entry point to the European Union.

 

Croatian policemen accompanying hundreds of migrants into Hungary were disarmed by their Hungarian counterparts and turned away, while Slovenian police used pepper spray to ward off hundreds, mostly Syrians and Afghans, trying to cross to reach the countries of northern Europe.

 

The chaos had been sparked by Hungary’s decision to shut off its southern border with Serbia, blocking a well-trodden refugee railroathat has brought more than 170,000 refugees into the EU since the start of the year.

 

In response, refugees flooded instead into Croatia, which immediately tried to move them back into Hungary and Slovenia, prompting quasi-military manoeuvres from its neighbours.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/german-interior-minister-calls-limits-migrants-eu-165728460.html;_ylt=A0LEVvBAlf1V6WkAIfhjmolQ

German interior minister calls for limits on migrants to EU

 

Germany's interior minister on Saturday said the European Union in the future should take in a finite number of migrants while sending the rest back to a safe country in their home regions.

 

"We cannot accept all the people who are fleeing conflict zones or poverty and want to come to Europe or Germany," Thomas de Maiziere said in an interview with the German news weekly Spiegel.

 

De Maiziere has taken a tougher line in the current crisis of tens of thousands of migrants sweeping across Europe, many heading for Germany, than the country's leader Angela Merkel.

 

For the conservative minister, Europe must refrain from setting relatively generous quotas of refugees, creating instead "a legal means of immigration" with a cap on the number of people the continent can be responsible for.

 

Once the continental limit on refugees has been reached, De Maiziere said they should be sent back to their "region of origin" to a place where "they can live in security and without persecution".

 

"We should financially help the countries concerned," he added.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/business/international/migrants-refugees-jobs-germany.html?_r=0

Germany Works to Get Migrants Jobs

 

https://news.yahoo.com/750-migrants-rescued-off-libyan-coast-msf-085603460.html

Over 4,500 migrants rescued off Libya in one day

 

Twenty-one rescue operations Saturday picked up more than 4,500 people off the Libyan coast, according to the Italian coastguard, as calm seas sparked a flurry of attempts at the perilous Mediterranean boat crossing.

 

Among those taking part was Doctors Without Borders ship Bourbon Argos, which told AFP it had rescued more than 800 people, who were expected to be brought to safety in Italy along with the rest of those saved.

 

"We started before first light this morning with our first rescue. We rescued two wooden fishing boats and two rubber dinghies," said Simon Burroughs, emergency coordinator for search-and-rescue missions by the medical group -- commonly known by its French initials MSF.

 

Burroughs said those rescued included Eritreans, Nigerians, Somalis, Libyans, Syrians and west Africans.

 

The 21 operations took place between 30 and 40 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, and saw rescue workers pluck people from nine boats and 12 dinghies. The body of a woman was also recovered.

 

The mass effort was carried out by an Italian military ship, the MSF's Bourbon Argos, the MAOS search and rescue Phoenix, a Croatian vessel operating under EU border agency Frontex, two vessels operating within the Eunavfor Med mission -- one British, one German -- and the Italian coastguard.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34255104

Syria refugee crisis: Yarmouk pianist's perilous journey to Greece

 

Amid the ruins of the destroyed Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, pianist Ayham al-Ahmad provided a rare glimmer of hope amid the devastation. Videos of him defiantly playing piano in the ruined streets of Yarmouk, accompanied by children and other residents of the camp, were widely shared online as a symbol of the camp's spirit of resistance.

 

But now Ayham al-Ahmad has had to join the millions who have fled Syria. He spoke to the BBC's Ian Pannell along each part of his route, explaining what eventually forced him to leave - and his perilous journey to Europe.

[visionary]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/19/the-refugees-who-live-at-dachau

The refugees housed at Dachau: 'Where else should I live?'

 

After five years in a cramped refugee shelter in southern Germany, Ashkan finally found a room to rent. It is newly renovated and cheap, if on the small side and a bit out of town. The 22-year-old chef, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban killed his father, immediately set about decorating it with an Afghan bedroll, a Persian rug and an Afghan flag. The low building that flanks his new home looked unremarkable to him. But to a German, the distinctive, elongated shape is rather unsettling, and for good reason. Ashkan’s new home is in a part of Dachau, a former concentration camp where the Nazis murdered 41,500 people, some in agonising medical experiments. Under the Nazis, the complex of buildings where Ashkan lives was used as a school of racially motivated alternative medicine, surrounded by a slave-labour plantation known as the “herb garden”. Asked if he feels uneasy about the site’s history, Ashkan replies with a resigned smile: “I just wanted a roof over my head.”

 

With shelters and social housing under pressure even before the current refugee crisis, the town of Dachau, near Munich, has resorted to housing about 50 of its most vulnerable inhabitants – among them homeless people, as well as refugees like Ashkan – in the former herb garden. It is just across the road from the main Dachau camp, which is surrounded by watchtowers and walls topped with barbed wire. Custodians of the former camp argue that the herb garden should be turned into a memorial site. Town officials say they need the space for those with nowhere else to go. Trapped in the middle are people like Ashkan.

 

He tells me he knows little about Germany’s Nazi past, and has had no time to visit the main memorial site: “I go to work, I come home, I go to work.” The herb garden looks bleak, despite the autumn sun. A few dilapidated greenhouses and a memorial slab are reminders of its past. Children play in the courtyard. Only a short train ride away in Munich, Germans are welcoming tens of thousands of Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis with cheers and “Willkommen” banners. But in Dachau, as in many other small German towns, the situation has been desperate, and not just this year. Recent headlines have focused on Germany’s hastily improvised emergency shelters – in exhibition centres and beer tents – to house new refugees. However, longer-term accommodation for those whose asylum claims are being processed, or who have been granted asylum, has posed just as much of a problem. In July, the city of Bochum caused an uproar when it announced plans to house up to 100 asylum seekers in containers in a cemetery. There have been calls to settle more refugees in former East Germany: many buildings there lie empty as locals move west, where the jobs are. However, the east has also seen furious protests against such shelters, and several refugees in Munich told me they were afraid to go there. Last year, 47% of all racist attacks in Germany took place in the former GDR, although it is home to only 17% of the country’s population.

 

But no other housing options are as controversial as former German concentration camps. Earlier this year, officials in the towns of Schwerte and Augsburg caused an uproar when they considered putting up refugees in external sites of concentration camps. Augsburg scrapped the plan, while authorities in Schwerte said the refugee shelter turned out to be next to – not on – the historical site. In Dachau, on the other hand, town officials and camp custodians are still at loggerheads over what to do with the buildings in question: remember past wrongs, or address present needs?

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/europe/us-to-increase-admission-of-refugees-to-100000-in-2017-kerry-says.html?_r=0

U.S. to Increase Admission of Refugees to 100,000 in 2017, Kerry Says

 

The Obama administration will increase the number of refugees the United States is willing to accept to 100,000 annually in 2017, a significant increase over the current worldwide cap of 70,000, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday.

 

The announcement came as Mr. Kerry conferred here with German officials on the wave of migrants that has swamped Europe and met with Syrian refugees who are seeking asylum in Europe.

 

Under the new plan, the American limit on refugee visas would be increased to 85,000 in the fiscal year 2016. The cap would then rise to 100,000 the following year.

 

Mr. Kerry said that the United States would explore ways to increase the limit beyond 100,000 in future years while carrying out background checks to ensure that the refugees have not been infiltrated by terrorists.

 

“This step is in keeping with America’s best tradition as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope,” Mr. Kerry said in his prepared remarks. “And it will be accompanied by continued financial contributions to the humanitarian effort — not only from the U.S. government, but from the American people. The need is enormous, but we are determined to answer the call.”

Americans officials said that the Syrian refugees accepted by the United States over the next year would be drawn from a list of more than 16,000 that the United Nations prepared before the current influx of migrants in Europe.

 

Still, the steps that Mr. Kerry announced are much less than that some former American officials and refugee experts have recommended.

 

Last Thursday, more than 20 former senior officials, including some who served in the State Department and Pentagon during the Obama administration, urged the White House to accept 100,000 Syrian refugees.

 

“We urge that you announce support for a refugees admissions goal of 100,000 Syrian refugees on an extraordinary basis, over and above the current worldwide refugee ceiling of 70,000,” they wrote in a letter to President Obama and congressional leaders. “With some four million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries and hundreds of thousands of Syrian asylum seekers in Europe, this would be a responsible exercise in burden sharing.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/world/un-funding-shortfalls-and-cuts-in-refugee-aid-fuel-exodus-to-europe.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

U.N. Funding Shortfalls and Cuts in Refugee Aid Fuel Exodus to Europe

 

One of the prime reasons for the wave of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers washing into Europe is the deterioration of the conditions that Syrians face in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, a worsening largely caused by sharp falls in international funding from United Nations countries, officials and analysts say.

 

That shortfall in funding, in contrast with the greater resources provided by Europe, is prompting some to make the hazardous journey who might otherwise remain where they are. The United Nations Syria Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, which groups a number of humanitarian agencies and covers development aid for the countries bordering Syria, had by the end of August received just 37 percent of the $4.5 billion appeal for needed funds this year.

 

António Guterres, the high commissioner for refugees, recently said that his agency’s budget this year would be 10 percent smaller than in 2014, and that it could not keep up with the drastic increase in need from the long Syrian conflict, which includes shelter, water, sanitation, food, medical assistance and education. The United Nations refugee agency’s funding for Syria this year is only at 43 percent of budgeted requirements.

 

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/57334/fiveyearold_girl_amongst_13_refugees_killed_in_boat_collision#.Vf7tZd9VhBc

Five-year-old girl amongst 13 refugees killed in boat collision

 

A five-year-old girl is among 13 refugees who died after the boat they were travelling in collided with a ferry off the Turkish coast on Sunday, officials said.

 

Nikos Lagkadianos, a spokesperson for the Greek coastguard, said the child was pulled from the sea unconscious and died later in hospital. The survivors told officials that 26 people had boarded their vessel from Turkey, which sank when water leaked into it, leaving 13 passengers unaccounted for.

 

The latest disaster came the day after another young child, a four-year-old Syrian girl, was washed up dead on a Turkish beach on the other side of the Aegean Sea.

The unnamed girl’s body was found in Cesme, along the coast from where three-year-old Aylan Kurdi drowned with his brother and mother.

The Coast Guard was also searching for another 27 people missing after their boat sank off the Greek island of Lesbos.

 

Coast guard officials said some 29 people were rescued in the two incidents. Ten people were rescued from the narrow strait between Lesbos and Turkey, and another passenger swam ashore in the early hours of Saturday morning.

 

Of the 300,000 refugees and migrants who have arrived in Greece so far this year, more than 93,000 have landed in Lesbos, where the infrastructure is unable to cope.

[visionary]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/for-many-syrians-in-lebanon-and-jordan-now-is-the-time-to-go/2015/09/21/513dfc9a-5d4a-11e5-8475-781cc9851652_story.html

For many Syrians in Lebanon and Jordan, now is the time to go

 

Europe’s refugee crisis shows signs that it will intensify in the coming weeks as more war-weary Syrians in Lebanon and Jordan scramble to join the extraordinary flow of people trying to reach the continent, according to aid workers and Syrians.

 

Nearly 2 million of Syria’s refugees reside in the tiny Arab countries, where they face tightening restrictions, growing tension with locals and decreasing support from international aid agencies. Motivated by desperation and scenes of people arriving in Europe, many are selling their few remaining possessions to pay for the treacherous journeys, the aid workers and Syrians said.

 

U.N. officials also have observed a sharp rise in the number of refugees in Jordan who are trying to transit via Turkey by doing the unthinkable: crossing through war-torn Syria.

 

“I am going back into hell,” Zeid Saad, 28, a refugee from the Damascus countryside, said recently as he prepared to enter Syria from Jordan with his wife. After living in Jordan for two years, he said, he had run out of money and hope.

 

After the civil war started in 2011, overwhelming numbers of Syrians began pouring into neighboring Lebanon and Jordan. The countries had pre-conflict populations of only about 4.2 million and 6.1 million people, respectively.

 

Syrian refugees have since exhausted savings, faced harsh restrictions on employment and lost optimism that their country’s raging war will end anytime soon. Falling donations, moreover, have forced aid agencies to greatly scale back support to refugees. The World Food Program has slashed its per-capita food allowances, which are now less than $14 a month for many Syrians, and stopped food aid for tens of thousands of other Syrians.

 

Many, as a result, appear to be leaving for Europe, said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.

“There are signs that this trend is starting to build,” he said.

 

Heightened border restrictions in countries such as Croatia and Hungary appear to be adding urgency to the exodus.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/21/us-europe-migrants-hungary-law-idUSKCN0RL1K220150921?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter

Hungary authorizes govt. to use army in migration crisis

 

Hungary's parliament authorized the government on Monday to deploy the army to help handle a migrant crisis, granting the military the right to deploy a range of non-lethal force.

 

It passed a law saying the army could use rubber bullets, pyrotechnical devices, tear gas grenades or net guns, according to the text posted on parliament's website.

 

Hungary, a landlocked nation of 10 million, lies in the path of the largest migration wave Europe has seen since World War Two. It has registered more than 220,000 asylum seekers this year, a wave Budapest has said it would do everything to deflect.

 

Prime Minister Viktor Orban told parliament that police were unable to secure Hungary's borders with Serbia and Croatia - outer borders of the EU's passport-free Schengen zone - without help form the army.

 

"We can defend the Serbian stretch of the border," he said, adding that fortifications at the 175-kilometre (110 mile) Hungary-Serbia border were working better than expected.

 

Hungary completed that border fence and deployed regular patrols, leading to a drastic drop of migrants crossing that stretch of the border and entering Croatia instead. Unable to cope, Zagreb has waved the migrants on to Hungary again.

 

Croatia is not a member of Schengen, and the two countries have exchanged bitter words over the handling of the migrant crisis, with Budapest threatening a veto of Croatia's Schengen accession and beginning work on a border fence there too.

 

"We can defend the Croatian stretch but to do that we need the army to patrol together with the police," Orban said.

He added Hungary would act on its own until the EU finds common ground to stem the flow of migrants.

 

"Europe is rich but weak. That is the most dangerous combination possible," Orban said. "The result ... is catastrophic. Because Europe cannot defend its external borders, internal borders are shut again."

[visionary]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6a893a30f1404095b553c815c9bf6d13/croatia-responds-migrant-pressure-reception-center

Bickering in the Balkans: Officials clash over migrants

 

The war of words over Europe's migrant crisis is turning vicious, with officials in the bickering Balkans trading blame and accusations of lying, while also disparaging each other's actions as "pathetic" and a "disgrace."

 

The plight over how to deal with thousands of asylum seekers is reviving old differences among Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia dating back to the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia. It's also creating some new tensions.

 

While the 28-nation European Union remains deeply divided over how to share the burden of relocating the refugees and is convening a series of meetings this week to seek a resolution, the finger-pointing turned especially nasty in the Balkans.

 

Hungary's decision Sept. 15 to close its border with Serbia has diverted the waves of people from the Middle East, Africa and Asia to Croatia.

 

At first, Croatia welcomed them, thinking they would simply go to Slovenia and continue on to Austria and Germany. But Slovenia shut its border, and Croatia quickly found itself overwhelmed with about 30,000 people in a matter of days.

 

Croatia then started putting the asylum seekers on trains and buses, even as their furious leaders argued that they had been let down by their neighbors.

 

Even though Croatia set up a migrant reception center Monday in the eastern village of Opatovac to try to bring order to the unrelenting chaos and misery, it could hardly undo the damage.

— Serbia denounced Hungary for using tear gas against the migrants on the border, with canisters landing on Serbian territory. It also protested Croatia's closing of most of its border crossings, threatening legal action over the blocking of truck traffic.

 

— Hungary blamed Serbia for failing to stop the migrants from throwing stones at its border police and accused Croatia of jeopardizing its sovereignty by sending thousands of migrants to Hungary. It also blamed Greece for failing to stop the influx.

 

— Slovenia expressed anger that Croatia is busing people to its frontier.

 

This led to undiplomatic exchanges among the European Union neighbors.

 

When Croatia said it and Hungary had agreed to create a corridor for the migrants, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry called that a "pack of lies." Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called the Croatian prime minister's handing of the crisis "pathetic."

 

Croatian, Serbian and Romanian officials compared Hungary's tough policies, including its new razor-coil fence, to the practices of Budapest's Nazi-backed World War II regime.

 

"Hungary's attitude is not European and is a disgrace for Europe," Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said. "To build fences between two European Union members, Hungary and Romania, is an unheard-of thing and has nothing to do with the European spirit."

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOs2mFGca0&feature=youtu.be

[visionary]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-syrian-refugees-arrive-under-uk-resettlement-plan-175343371.html;_ylt=A0LEV7zxmAFWuhMAE0BjmolQ

First Syrian refugees arrive under UK resettlement plan

 

Britain on Tuesday welcomed the first of the 20,000 Syrian refugees that it has pledged to relocate from camps in countries neighbouring the war-torn nation, according to the government.

 

"Today a number of people have arrived in the UK as part of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme," said a Home Office statement.

 

"As the Prime Minister announced earlier this month, we will resettle 20,000 Syrians over the course of this Parliament through this scheme."

 

 

 

[visionary]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir/trump-campaign-manager-president-trump-would-admit-zero-syri?utm_term=.cjX5GymxZ#.vfGezzoYA

Trump Campaign Manager: President Trump Would Admit Zero Syrian Refugees

 

Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Tuesday that the United States “should take in zero” Syrian refugees.

 

“This is very simple, the bottom line is we should take in zero,” Lewandowski said when asked by radio host John Fredericks what a President Trump would do about the refugee crisis.

 

“And the Untied States, to be clear, has a process for bringing refugees into the country, and an individual must qualify as a refugee to begin that process, is how it works. Individuals caught in a civil war do not necessarily qualify as refugees,” Lewandowski continued

 

“If Mr. Trump were the president of the United States we would not be bringing refugees into the country under this criteria,” Lewandowski said.
In past interviews, Trump has not completely ruled out taking in refugees from Syria.

 

On September 8th, Trump told Bill O’Reilly: “I hate the concept of it, but on a humanitarian basis, you have to” accept some refugees.

 

On September 15th, Trump told Morning Joe that “the answer is possibly yes” to accepting refugees, even though “we have so many problems of our own.”

 

“There’s only so much we can do — we have to fix our own country,” he explained. “Now, Europe is handling it, Germany has been very generous so far, which is very surprising to me, to be honest with you.”

 

“But it’s a huge problem, and we should help as much as possible, but we do have to fix our own country,” Trump concluded.

 

On Tuesday, Lewandowski took this line of argument a step further, arguing that “it is time — and Mr. Trump has said this, time and time again — to put Americans first.”

[visionary]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/world/europe/european-union-ministers-migrants-refugees.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

Plan on Migrants Strains the Limits of Europe’s Unity

 

After weeks of indecision, the European Union voted on Tuesday to distribute 120,000 asylum seekers among member states, a plan meant to display unity in the face of the largest movement of refugees on the Continent since World War II.

 

Instead, the decision — forced through by a majority vote, over the bitter objections of four eastern members — did as much to underline the bloc’s widening divisions, even over a modest step that barely addresses the crisis.

 

Nearly half a million migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe this year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a number that is only expected to rise.

 

The crisis has tested the limits of Europe’s ability to forge consensus on one of the most divisive issues to confront the union since the fall of Communism. It has set right-wing nationalist and populist politicians against Pan-European humanitarians, who have portrayed the crisis in stark moral terms.

 

“We would have preferred to have adoption by consensus, but we did not manage to achieve that,” Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, said after a meeting of home affairs and interior ministers.

 

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-23/hollande-wrongfooted-on-refugee-surge-fearing-le-pen-s-rise

Hollande Wrongfooted on Refugee Surge, Fearing Le Pen's Rise

 

As Europe searches for a solution to the migrant crisis, French President Francois Hollande is in his customary position: stuck in the middle and pleasing few.

 

The Socialist leader finds himself playing second fiddle to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the unfolding drama as European Union leaders meet Wednesday to seek a way out of their impasse on how to cope with thousands of migrants knocking on the region’s gates. France’s acceptance of migrants has been overshadowed by greater generosity shown next door by Germany.

 

“The government is fearful of doing anything that would benefit the anti-immigration right,” said Francois Gemenne , researcher at Sciences Po University. “At the same time, they have intellectuals in the press and much of their base saying that France, the nation of human rights, looks ridiculous next to Germany. The government doesn’t know what foot to dance on. They’ve ended up with a policy that satisfies no one.”

 

That mirrors much of what Hollande has done in his three years in office. On the economy, his socialist base feels he has sold out by recent moves to liberalize labor markers and ease rules for business, while conservative parties pillory him for raising taxes. Hollande’s approval rating fell one point to 24 percent in September, according to the most recent Ifop poll.

 

Hollande and Merkel on Sept. 4 jointly urged the EU to agree on a redistribution plan for refugees and to speed up processing in countries where they arrive. Under a formula proposed by the European Commission, France and Germany agreed to take 30,000 and 44,000 refugees respectively, out of the 160,000 who had made their way to Italy, Greece and Hungary.

 

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/21/uk-mideast-crisis-lebanon-education-idUKKCN0RL1J420150921

Lebanon says to provide schooling for up to 100,000 more Syrian refugees

 

Lebanon is to provide schooling for tens of thousands more children this year including Syrian refugees, the education ministry said on Monday, as the country tries to cope with the effects of the war next door.

 

Funding from international donors, UN refugee agency UNHCR and children's fund UNICEF could see up to 100,000 more Syrian children, twice the number of last year, attend public schools for free, the ministry and organisations announced at a joint news conference.

 

With Lebanon hosting the highest proportion of Syrian refugees - 1.1 million in a country of 4 million people - some public schools already have more Syrian than Lebanese students.

 

Lebanon stopped UNHCR registering Syrian refugees in May in an attempt to cope with large numbers of people fleeing the four-year-old civil war.

"You all know the impact of the crisis in Europe... 120,000 refugees in the whole of Europe shook the world," Education Minister Elias Bou Saab said.

"A million and a half refugees for 4 million people in Lebanon - what do you think this has caused for us?"

 

The foreign minister recently called on other Arab countries and the wider international community to share the burden in hosting Syria's 4 million refugees, most of whom are in neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2015/sep/22/kiss-knows-no-borders-photographing-refugee-couple-budapest

A kiss knows no borders: photographing a tender moment amid the refugee crisis

 

It was Sunday morning, 30 August. Hot. In Aszód, 40km from Budapest, Istvan Zsiros was up early. For days, weeks now, the Hungarian media had been filled with stories and pictures of the swelling number of mainly Syrian refugees arriving in the country, heading north and west for Germany or Sweden.

 

At the capital’s main international railway station, Keleti, a makeshift transit camp had formed as the increasingly desperate migrants waited to board trains for Austria, and the Hungarian authorities declined to let them. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people, including many families with young children, were camped in the station concourse in rapidly worsening conditions. Five days later, more than 1,000 of them would become so frustrated that they would set off for the Austrian border – some 170km (125 miles) away – on foot.

 

Zsiros, a 30-year-old IT worker who recently gave up his day job to try to make a living from photography, wanted to see for himself: “It is important,” he says, “to be open and curious to the world. Something told me to go. To see for myself, not through the media.” An hour’s bus ride and half an hour’s walk later, he was at the station with his camera.

 

He was in the crowded station for barely half an hour, but it was long enough to capture one of the more memorable images of Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since the second world war; a life-affirming picture that, in its intimacy and tenderness, is a moving counterpart to the heart-stopping photographs of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler washed up on a Turkish beach, that shocked a continent.