A tent at a refugee camp in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan (Demotix/Enno Heidtmann)
As I write, Russian air bombardment in Syria is pushing even greater numbers of middle class and skilled Syrians to try to escape the country. This new displacement is marching directly to Europe via smugglers because legal mechanisms to request asylum in the region are extremely limited, considered dangerous by some, or have become extraordinarily long, bureaucratic processes which take years to be completed, something that few can tolerate.
The unspoken British humanitarian aid policy of ‘containment’ of the refugee crisis in the Syrian region is the sister of the policy espoused so clearly by Theresa May of keeping refugees out of the UK and Europe. However, the effort to keep refugees from Syria contained in the immediate neighbouring states is proving simply unsustainable.
