How Compassion For Refugees Is Fading And How Little Has Changed

It was a year ago that the image of a 3-year-old boy, a refugee named Alan Kurdi, sparked compassion and outrage. The boy’s father, a Syrian taxi driver named Mohammad Mohammad, reminds others how the outrage of the boys death caused a movement insisting that the west do more to assist those who were forced to flee their war-torn nation. However, Mohammad, who spends his days at a refugee camp in northern Greece, holds up the image of his son as a symbol that little has changed in the year since his son’s death.

“Bewildered and Covered in Blood.” Syria’s Children One Year After #AlanKurdi‘s Death: https://t.co/W2Ml1PzZtr pic.twitter.com/gRVQXTi4RI

— Save the Children US (@SavetheChildren) September 5, 2016

As the Guardian states, tens of thousands of refugees have been stranded in terrible conditions in this region of Greece since early spring. It was at this time that the Balkan leaders shut borders to the refugees. Mohammad terms the chaos of the situation “a human disaster.”

“I hope leaders can try & do good & stop the wars” #AylanKurdi‘s father’s plea 1 yr after his son’s death https://t.co/noJd6cVUiI @BBCWorld

— UNICEF (@UNICEF) September 3, 2016

Following Alan’s death, there seemed to be a shift in response to refugees and policies. European leaders seemed to be shocked enough to reform policies to make them more compassionate. Two days following the tot’s death, Germany agreed to allow thousands of refugees entrance to the nation after many being stranded in Hungary. This move then encouraged leaders of both central and eastern European nations to create a humanitarian corridor from the north of Greece to southern Bavaria. Canada promised to admit and resettle 25,000 Syrians, and David Cameron of the U.K. agreed to resettle 4,000 refugees. This number was less than the number of refugees arriving each day on the Greek islands, yet a large improvement from the lesser number Cameron originally offered.

It was also following the death of Alan that European leaders took a shared responsibility for refugees landing on Greek and Italian shores. In the later months of 2015, leaders of European nations created a system that was intended on seeing 120,000 refugees relocated from Greece and Italy to other European nations.

On the night the decision was made, U.N.’s special representative for international migration, Peter Sutherland, spoke on the matter.

“The principle is so important and reflects such a change of thinking that in itself this is a very significant development.”

One year later, these amendments to immigration policies seemed to have proven to be a temporary promise. By September 2015, four countries were against the relocation deals and only one, Hungary, lay on the migration trail through the Balkans. Croatia and Slovenia opened their doors when Hungary shut theirs on September 15.

Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs, spoke about the decision made by the nation a year ago, and notes how now other countries are finally following suit and coming to the same conclusions one year later.

“Most of the countries have come to the same conclusions that we came to last year. They didn’t see it as we saw it last year, and there are still people in Brussels who don’t. But common sense has prevailed.”

The Balkan humanitarian corridor has shut access to the refugees due to a rise of right-wing views across much of the continent and the correlation made between migration and terrorism. The continent has slowly abandoned the approach that saw them as more humane. Austria wishes to see Greece assume the role as a giant holding station for those seeking refuge. Even Sweden, a nation that was fully open to immigrants and allowed Syrians to find refuge, has since withheld generosity over the past few months.

The publication reminds as to what the reality of the situation in regard to refugee resettlement is.

“The relocation scheme has proved dysfunctional: the rest of Europe has accepted just 5,142 people from Greece, instead of the 66,400 promised. And if the EU had its way, most of the few people still arriving on the Greek islands – the weekly numbers are now in the hundreds, rather than the tens of thousands – would now be deported back to Turkey under the EU-Turkey migration deal.”

[Photo by Kutluhan Cucel/Getty Images]