Have
you ever thought of taking to the streets on a cold winter day with no
possessions, money, food or even an ID card? Can you imagine having your
children with you and having nothing to protect them or keep them warm
with? Six million Syrians had never thought of that either, but today
they have all had to abandon their homes. For these people who have
become refugees, the real problem starts now; dispersed families and
poor and unhealthy living conditions. Thousands losing their lives on
the roads.
It
is the innocent Syrian people who have been affected by the harsh civil
war raging in Syria for years. But how many people know that there are
people in Syria who lived under very difficult conditions even before
the civil war?
Syria
was one of the countries with the most refugee camps even before the
civil war. Some of those in the very worst conditions in Syria, which
hosts two million refugees in camps, are the Palestinians living there
as refugees. The population of the Yarmouk refugee camp, initially set
up for Palestinians fleeing 1948 Arab-Israeli war, reached 600,000 with
increasing waves of migration. Although some people have left the camp
as the civil war went on, it still has a large refugee population. Life
in the camp - which Assad’s forces first attempted to intimidate with
attacks and then placed under an embargo, refusing to allow food and
medicines in - is becoming harder by the day. So much so that when
people were forced for want of food to try and live on tree leaves last
year, Syrian religious scholars issued a fatwa saying that “dog
and cat meat can be eaten.” That is by itself sufficient to show the
conditions the people there are struggling to survive in. The refugees
in the Yarmouk camp need urgent humanitarian assistance.
This
is of course only one of the most urgent situations but the word
“refugee” now represents the same difficulty for almost everyone. There
is no improvement in the lives of all refugees, particularly in the
Middle East, not just those forced to depart from Syria. Increasing
numbers of people are being forced to abandon the places they live in
every year. Some of these migrate within the country concerned, while
the rest move to either neighboring or more distant lands. Afghan
refugees, 95% of whom have sought refuge in neighboring countries such
as Pakistan and Iran, represent the largest part of the world’s
refugees; one in every four refugees in the world is an Afghan.
Afghanistan is followed by Somalia and Iraq. There are 450,000
UN-registered refugees in Lebanon. These refugees, living in 12
settlements under very harsh circumstances, are trying to survive in
poverty. Their fundamental rights are denied them and they lack even
symbolic political rights. In other words, these people are still living
as refugees with no citizenship rights after 66 years. New generations
are being born and growing up in refugee camps.
So
how can this problem of refugees be solved? The first requirement for
people forced to migrate because of troubles at home is the right to
enter countries where they can be safe and can move around freely. In
this way, they will not be forced to wait at border crossings after long
journeys, and at least the first step in the journey will be made
easier. There is an urgent need for a union of Muslim states, resembling
the European Union, to be set up to resolve this problem and the
growing refugee question in the Middle East. In this way, citizens of
countries that enjoy free rights of movement into one another, like the
EU, will have a way out when troubles arise and will be able to find a
humanitarian corridor. Rights such as dual nationality and the right to
work without visas will put an end to conditions that restrict refugees
and prevent them from living under humane conditions and provide a
solution that all people of good conscience can be comfortable with.
Even
when we look at the implementation of a more humane phase by improving
the lives of refugees, we still see the need for the Middle East to have
its own union. In order for there to be a rapid solution to this
emergency situation without lengthy political and bureaucratic
procedures, everyone who espouses freedom and equality should call for
such a union.
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