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The response by the international community to the worst refugee crisis since WWII has been labelled a 'shameful failure' by Amnesty International in a scathing report released today. It's been estimated that more than 50 million refugee immigrants fleeing conflicts in places such as war-torn Syria, Eritrea and Sub-Saharan Africa have been left stateless and living in "unbearable conditions".
Focusing in particular on the refugee crisis caused by conflicts between ISIS and Kurdistan in Syria, the report is titled The Global Refugee Crisis: A Conspiracy of Neglect. It states that displaced Syrian refugees have received "almost no meaningful international support", either in nations hosting them or from the wider international community.
In a statement made by Amnesty International upon the report's launch, Salil Shetty said, "We are witnessing the worst refugee crisis of our era, with millions of women, men and children struggling to survive amidst brutal wars, networks of people traffickers and governments who pursue selfish political interests instead of showing basic human compassion".
International response provides only 23 percent of funds required
With only a mere 23% of the humanitarian funds required to support Syrian refugees drummed up by the international community, the burden of accepting and supporting Syrian refugees has fallen almost exclusively on neighbouring nations. In Lebanon 1 in 5 civilians is now a Syrian refugee, which has pushed its infrastructure to the brink of collapse.
A series of tragedies this spring off the Mediterranean Coast saw hundreds of immigrants, many Syrian refugees, die trying to cross from Libya to Italy. It is believed that 1,865 immigrants have died undertaking the perilous crossing so far in 2015. Shetty in the statement for the report's release accused European nations of effectively "pushing them back into the sea rather than resettle them" and failing to support the world's most vulnerable people.
Amnesty International have called for a global strategy to come into effect to resettle refugee immigrants; nations should take in 1.5 million refugees over the course of the next 5 years, starting with those running away from conflict and war.
