By Megan Specia
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| By Megan Specia |
Refugees and migrants are heading to Europe at a rate three
times greater than last year, according to a new report released by the
International Organization for Migration (IOM), and are set to shatter a record
number of new arrivals reached in 2015.
By the end of 2015, more than 1 million people had made
their way to the continent, mostly by crossing the Mediterranean on overcrowded
boats, marking the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. But if
the volume of new people arriving from war torn nations continues to grow, the
refugee crisis is set to explode at a rate never before seen in Europe.
There have been 102,547 arrivals in the Greek islands since
the beginning of 2016. In 2015, the number of arrivals did not reach that
threshold until June, according to IOM.
The journey is also becoming increasingly more deadly as the
numbers grow. More than 413 people have drowned in the Mediterranean during the
first two months of 2016, with the eastern route between Turkey and Greece
being the deadliest area for crossing.
The growing scale of the crisis has forced a knee-jerk
reaction in many countries along the migrant route, which are now imposing
arbitrary quotas in order to cope with the influx and closing their borders.
At Austria's southern border, officials have been closing
the border if more than 80 people claim asylum in a day, or if more than 3,200
want to transit through to neighboring countries.
The restrictions are having a ripple effect further down the
route. At the Greek-Macedonia border, Macedonian authorities have been allowing
only Syrians and Iraqis to cross the border, and turning back Afghans and
others to Greece.
The UN Refugee Agency UNHCR is especially concerned about
the situation in the Balkan states, warning that Europe is "backing into
an even greater refugee crisis by tightening border restrictions on the
hundreds of thousands who have fled war and conflict The UN Refugee Agency
UNHCR is especially concerned about the situation in the Balkan states, warning
that Europe is "backing into an even greater refugee crisis by tightening
border restrictions on the hundreds of thousands who have fled war and conflict
in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries."
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, visited
the Greek island of Lesbos on Tuesday and voiced serious concerns about the
approach being taken in the Balkans.
"We are worried that these closings are happening and
that there are no corresponding openings through relocation and
resettlement," said Grandi. "That will create further chaos and
confusion and it will increase the burden on Greece which is already
shouldering a big responsibility managing these people.
On Tuesday along, at least 1,800 people made the dangerous
crossing by rubber dinghy from Turkey to Lesbos. While on the island, Grandi
also denounced "the tendency to classify people along the route by
nationality," and singling out Syrians and Iraqis for preferential
treatment while blocking Afghans, Somalis and Palestinians.
Grandi hopes a UNHCR conference to be held on March 30 will
promote legal routes for Syrian refugees into Europe and further afield, which
will reduce dependence on smuggler networks and make the crisis more
manageable. He said both Europe and the world must commit to taking more Syrian
refugees to ease the burden on the principal refugee-hosting countries of
Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan and those on the front lines of the migration
crisis.
His ambitions are high.
"But we're not going to tell them, take a few hundreds
or a few thousands as is the case now. We're going to tell them to take
hundreds of thousands," said Grandi. "In fact our hope would be 10
per cent of the whole Syrian refugee population, this is almost half a million
people."
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