That is the title of an article by Alexander Casella at the Asia Times.

The author contends that the role of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is diminishing when it comes to major refugee movements as Islamic Non-governmental organizations play a larger role.  Emphasis below is mine.

GENEVA – As the Syrian crisis is poised to enter into its third year, it is estimated that 25% of the country’s inhabitants have been uprooted, including more than 2 million refugees abroad and about 4.5 million internally displaced people.

With the conflict showing no sign of abating, numbers of those crossing the border to seek refuge in neighboring countries is estimated on average at about 2,000 a day. Conversely, the humanitarian response to the tragedy is proving as chaotic, uncoordinated and politicized as the conflict itself.

During the years of the Cold War, with refugees moving essentially from East to West, the Western bloc, comprising essentially the industrialized democracies had in effect delegated to the UN system and its executive arm, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the task of managing major refugee crisis.

Thus, the responses to both the Afghan refugee emergency and the Vietnamese boat people crisis were essentially managed by UNHCR and funded by the Western bloc. In practice this meant that the cosmetics of helping refugees benefited mostly the UN system rather than the donor governments providing the funding. Ultimately, funds provided by individual governments were laundered through the UN system, thus acquiring a “humanitarian” label.

The erosion of this process started with the Bosnian conflict in 1992. Coming in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, by the end of the conflict in 1995 a new trend had emerged. While still using the UN system as a channel for assistance, donor governments would increasingly provide their aid either bilaterally or through their own national non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

[….]

Looking beyond the numbers, and viewed from a global perspective, the Syrian refuge crisis represents a major turning point in the international management of conflict-driven population displacement.

New “humanitarian order” as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood step into the void:

There are many examples in the Middle East of political movements that gained a foothold among the population through social welfare activities. Such was the case of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood – all of which had generous welfare programs in societies where governments tended to ignore the needs of the poor. Social welfare thus became a political weapon not only in the hands of those who managed it but even more so in those who provided the funding. The Syrian crisis was to highlight this new humanitarian order.

The author first contends that Muslim countries are fueling the conflict in Syria as well as funding the NGOs:

The same pattern has emerged as regards humanitarian assistance. In February 2013, at the Kuwait funding conference, some $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid was pledged by the Gulf states. However, with the exception of Kuwait, which donated $112 million to UNHCR, all these contributions were channeled through Islamic NGOs rather than through the UN system.

There is a lot more, read it all.

Since Western NGOs are so reluctant to play favorites and thus bend over backwards to prove they love the Muslims just as much, is anyone focusing on helping Syrian CHRISTIANS?

Photo is from this story last week.