![]() ![]() In the span of 16 years we have surpassed the number of refugees who were fleeing over a period of four decades. The current refugee cycle began in 2000 and 16 years later, the number of refugees seeking asylum throughout the world since then has hit an estimated 50 million people. The last major refugee migration spanned from 1960 to 2000 and was due to both the multiple anti-colonial movements in Africa and Asia as well as people fleeing the Soviet Union.Īccording to a study done by the Washington Post, these migration patterns displaced a minimum of 46.5 million. Then there are those escaping state-sponsored genocide in places like Myanmar where the Rohingya, the country’s ethnic Muslim minority, are believed to be in the last stages of ethnic cleansing. Some are fleeing political persecution and chronic poverty which has been seen in countries such as Eritrea, Kosovo and Albania. For example, in the past year, extreme violence between major crime networks within Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras has created a new wave of Latino refugees seeking shelter in the U.S. This has been seen in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, but war is not the only cause of violence. Many current refugees are fleeing from consequences of civil war. 2014, nearly 19.4 million displaced people, originally from areas in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America, brought the estimated total global refugee population to fifty million people. In a 2015 report released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Dec. In fact, we are currently experiencing the largest forced migration of people since World War II. 2015, but it doesn’t mean it is the only one. Without a doubt, the Syrian refugee crisis is now the world’s largest, with “Eurostat” finding an estimated 250,000 people traveling to the EU from Oct. However, we cannot hope to find a viable solution when we still have yet to fully acknowledge the magnitude of the current global migrant crisis. So daunting, there has been growing popularity of xenophobic populism in Europe and an extreme right wing in the U.S. The most unnerving aspect of the discussion surrounding the Syrian refugees is that it has created a rhetoric where the world views the crisis as synonymous with the current, much larger global migrant crisis: It is not.įinding a solution to address the influx of refugees coming into Europe and America is daunting. Since then, the world has put immense focus on Syria - exposing the racially, ethnically and religiously-influenced horrors and maltreatment of Syrian refugees as well as their life-threatening journey as they arrive in Europe. The Syrian refugee crisis has dominated headlines and political conversations since the disturbing image of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy, drowned and washed ashore on Turkey’s coastline. Illustration by Clayton Bontrager illustration by Clayton Bontrager ![]()
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