There is nothing new that we haven’t written about here at RRW in recent years, but it’s a short and handy reminder of what is happening in Africa and the Middle East and some new readers may not know that black Africans, even the ones who are Muslim, are not liked by Arabs.
Fences make good neighbors! Israel built a border fence along its Egyptian border. Photo by Eliyahu Hershkovitz at Haaretz
Black African refugees in Egypt are frustrated by ongoing racism and discrimination, particularly as they witness the assistance given to Arab refugees, the pan-Arab Aljazeera network reports.
Sources told the network that they have few rights in Egypt. “Even if you’re a recognized refugee, and you have a blue card, you have no right to medical treatment, no right to education, no right to work,” NGO programmer Christopher Eades explained.
Aid worker and refugee Yagoub Hamdan told Aljazeera, “When there was an influx of African refugees, there was no attention from the NGOs.” But when Syrian refugees began to arrive, he said, the United Nations took notice, and built camps for them.
So, the Africans went to Israel in large numbers (see our category on Israel and refugees) until they wore out their welcome and Israel built a border fence.
In recent years, African Muslim refugees in Egypt increasingly began fleeing to Israel, which provides illegal entrants with several social services. High crime among Sudanese and Eritrean migrants, particularly high-profile incidents of violent rape and anti-Semitism, led to a backlash against Israeli policy.
In recent months the government completed a border fence that has contributed to a massive drop in illegal entry from Egypt.
Just recently we posted on the UN’s Kilian Kleinschmidt telling Der Spiegelthat the refugees at Zaatari in Jordan are the “most difficult he has ever seen.” Did Kerry find that out too?
Kerry meets with Syrian “refugees” trying to drag US (further!) into their civil war.
Last week, Secretary of State Kerry met with “refugees” in the camp who gave him an earful about how the US wasn’t doing enough to help the ‘rebels.’ I fully expected to see demands that they be taken to America, but at least in this story, they only want the US to insert itself even further into their civil war.
In reality, it’s often the NGOs (paid by the head for each refugee they resettle) who want to take them to America, sometimes against their will.
ZAATARI, Jordan (AP) — Angry Syrian refugees confronted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday with demands for the United States and the international community to do more to help opponents of President Bashar Assad’s regime, venting frustration at perceived inaction on their behalf.
Visiting the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan near the Syrian border, Kerry met six representatives of its 115,000-strong population, all of whom appealed to him for the U.S. and its allies to create no-fly zones and set up safe zones inside Syria to prevent the Assad regime from inflicting additional destruction.
The article mentions that the number of refugees in the camp is declining.
The Photo is from this article, not clear who the photo credit belongs to.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave this summer, you know that Turkey’s increasingly Islamist supremacist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, incidentally often identified as Obama’s only real friend among world leaders (here he names five friends), is having serious domestic problems stemming from his people, mostly the young, who do not want Turkey to become a theocracy. LOL! I bet he is watching Egypt very closely!
Obama to Erdogan: I love you! 2011 AP Photo
Now it seems his problems could get worse because he “welcomed” tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to Turkey who are now, to put it mildly, rubbing the locals the wrong way.
Domestic developments in Turkey have turned public focus away from Ankara’s growing problem with Syrian refugees. Caught between its welcoming rhetoric toward predominantly Sunni Syrians fleeing the wrath of Bashar al-Assad, and the realities on the ground in Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the problem. All the while, he complains about the lack of international support in this regard.
Meanwhile, unease grows in Turkish towns and cities near the Syrian border where large numbers of Alevis sympathetic to Assad live. It seems that the welcome extended to fleeing Syrians by Ankara is wearing thin among locals, who are turning against the refugees, accusing them of disrupting the normal life of the region.
After a lament about how much all of this is costing Turkey, and that the international community isn’t helping much, comes this dynamite bit of news—refugee camps may be resting places for Sunni-fighters traveling back and forth to Syria.
Meanwhile, Kirisci (Kemal Kirisci, from the Brookings Institution in Washington), like other observers — including the ICG — indicates that the Turkish public appears to be increasingly wary of the presence of an ever-growing number of refugees.“There are reports of complaints about property rents rising in towns and cities close to the border areas as well as about wages being pushed down by refugees who take up jobs in the border regions,” Kirisci wrote in his blog post. [Ho hum, refugees take jobs and limited rental properties from locals, what else is new!—ed]
Referring to the issue of local discontent, the ICG indicated in April that several of the camps in Turkey are being used by predominantly Sunni opposition fighters from Syria as off-duty resting places to visit their families, receive medical services and purchase supplies.(Are they picking up American weapons there too?—ed)
“This is exacerbating sensitive ethnic and sectarian balances, particularly in Hatay province, where more than one third of the population is of Arab Alevi descent and directly related to Syria’s Alawites,” said the report. Local discontent with the Syrian refugees is, however, not just restricted to the Alevis.
Then there was the thwarted kidnapping of a child (by Syrians) from a prominent Turkish family:
Anger toward the Syrians peaked after the twin car bomb attacks in the town of Reyhanli, near the Syrian border, on May 11. About 53 people, mostly Sunnis, were killed in the atrocity allegedly perpetrated by pro-Assad operatives in Turkey, who were later arrested and now face trials. There were angry demonstrations in Reyhanli against the refugees after the bombing by nationalist elements, leaving many Syrians in doubt as to whether they are safe in Turkey.
Already faced with difficulties as a result of their burgeoning numbers, Syrian refugees also have to cope with claims that are bound to agitate local Turks. Sefik Cirkin, a deputy for Hatay from the ultra-nationalist and predominantly Sunni National Movement Party (MHP), for example, said in June that some Syrians had been thwarted by the Turkish police as they tried to abduct the child of a prominent Turkish family in the region.
Indicating that Reyhanli and Antakya, the capital of Hatay province, were “sitting on a social bomb,” as some tried to ignite sectarian conflict between local Alevis and Sunnis, Cirkin went on to ask in a loaded fashion, “What would have happened if this child had been abducted?”
Erdogan has problems! (no kidding!), and I hope they become so great (refugees cost a fortune!) that he must stop building the massive Islamic center in Maryland!
The last thing Erdogan needs at a time when he is facing nationwide protests by anti-government elements, that are also angry over his failed Syria policy, is to have an Alevi-Sunni conflict on his hands, a prospect that has never been far from the surface in Turkey. Some would argue that he himself fueled sectarian animosity with his pro-Sunni Syrian policy.
Actually they didn’t say “to begin with,” that was me, because we all know that this is just the beginning with literally millions of Syrians on the move throughout the Middle East.
Syrians on the move. We are coming to Canada! Washington Post photo
Be sure to read what the director of one of the largest Syrian camps said recently (here)—-most difficult refugees in the world!
Apparently the Canadian government has succumbed to pressure from its 100,000-strong Canadian ‘Syrian community.’
1,300 will soon be on the way, according to The Star:
Ottawa will resettle 1,300 Syrian refugees to Canada from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey over two years to address the deepening humanitarian crisis there, says Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
The announcement on Wednesday came a month after the Syrian Canadian community made a public appeal urging the federal government to establish a special program for displaced refugees caught up in the two-year-old civil war between Syrian President Bashar Assad and the opposition.
The latest United Nations data shows more than 4.25 million Syrians are internally displaced and more than 1.6 million have fled to neighbouring countries.
“Our focus . . . is finding a long-term political solution to the crisis there,” Kenney told a news conference in Edmonton. “Our country is making an important effort to ensure the most vulnerable Syrian refugees are provided protection.” [They love that word too—vulnerable!-–ed]
A coalition representing Canada’s 100,000-strong Syrian community welcomed the announcement, but worry about the lengthy screening and processing involved in the resettlement program.
“It is a step in the right direction. They finally recognized the crisis in Syria, which is the largest refugee crisis in the world today,” said Faisal Alazem of the Syrian Canadian Council in Montreal, one of seven groups involved in the coalition that met with Kenney in June.
Then US readers take note, in Canada many refugees are resettled with PRIVATE FUNDING. In the US almost all refugees are resettled with taxpayer money funneled through resettlement contractors.
Two hundreds of the 1,300 Syrian refugees will be resettled with financial support by the Canadian government, while the rest will be assisted by community and faith groups that have sponsorship agreements with Ottawa.
If the US required private financial support and added legal responsibility for the resettlement sponsor group or individual sponsors, the refugee flow would be seriously curtailed. It’s just too easy to want more (and more) refugees when using someone else’s money!
This (below) is a press release from the Bishops on World Refugee Day which I hadn’t seen until I saw a short news account of it at Catholic World News earlier today.
USCCB Press Release. I have to laugh, they sure work in one of their favorite buzz words—vulnerable—but not a word about vulnerable CHRISTIANS! And, never a peep about how they are paid by the head to bring in the “vulnerable” Muslims. See our recent post on the USCCB and its unholy dependence on Caesar’s money!
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, leading his immigrant flock on facebook?
And, go hereto learn more about Syrian refugees—-the most difficult in the world!
WASHINGTON—Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Migration, marked June 20, World Refugee Day, by calling for U.S. support and resettlement of vulnerablerefugee populations across the world, including Syrians fleeing conflict in their country.
“The conflict in Syria is worsening and it is time for the United States and the international community to do more to respond to the needs of Syrians fleeing their country for safety,” Archbishop Gomez said.
Archbishop Gomez added that particularly vulnerable Syrians should be considered for resettlement to the United States and other countries, such as vulnerable women with children, the elderly and disabled, and unaccompanied refugee children.
“Durable solution” (another buzz phrase!) is code for bringing them to America.
“Resettlement to a safe third country should be considered, both to provide the best durable solution for vulnerable Syrians but also to take pressure off of neighboring countries, such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan,” Archbishop Gomez said. [We gotta take the pressure off those Muslim countries you know!—ed]
To date, the United States has resettled only 24 Syrian refugees. [I doubt that and we just learned recently that 2,000 are in the pipeline for this year—ed]
Gomez: We need to bring in the Rohingya Muslims too!
Archbishop Gomez referred to other refugee populations worldwide in need of support and possible resettlement, including Rohingya Burmese in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand; Congolese in East and Southern Africa; and Afghans [Muslims too!] who are fleeing to Turkey and other areas of the world. “We have an obligation to help these vulnerable populations,” he said, “including and especially the most vulnerable refugees: unaccompanied minors and those that have become victims of human trafficking.”
“Sadly, there continues to be no shortage of refugees in need of the world’s attention and support,” Archbishop Gomez concluded.”As the world’s leader in protecting refugees, the United States must do more to respond to humanitarian crises in and around Syria and other parts of the globe.”
Did you get the message—they are VULNERABLE? But, what about the vulnerable Americans who don’t have jobs and are struggling to make ends meet in your town. And, what about the vulnerable taxpayers who pay for all of this?
This (below) is a press release from the Bishops on World Refugee Day which I hadn’t seen until I saw a short news account of it at 