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The best hope for refugees sadly is that they become aquatic. Frankie Boyle’s New World Order I, BBC 2017
If we think we have an immigrant crisis today which is non-existent, what’s it going to be like when tens of millions of people are fleeing from rising sea levels? Noam Chomsky, The Alien Perspective on Humanity 16th August 2017, Youtube 51.14
Turkish president Turgut Ozal ... made use of the opportunity offered by the Gulf crisis to step up attacks on his own Kurdish population, confident that the US media would judiciously refrain from reporting the bombings of Kurdish villages and the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees trying to survive the cold winter in the mountains without aid or provisions. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
There’s a reason why people are fleeing. It’s not because they love Europe. It’s because of intolerable conditions largely created by European terror and violence over centuries. Now it’s Europe’s responsibility to behave humanely towards them. Noam Chomsky, interview Going Underground, RT September 2020
An island smaller than Sicily or Sardinia has been utterly divided. Christopher Hitchens, Cyprus: Stranded in Time, BBC Frontiers 1989
Turkey’s invasion, a catastrophe on an epic scale for the Greek-Cypriot majority, was greeted by many of the Turkish minority as a deliverance. An extremist coup sponsored by the then military dictatorship in Greece had given Turkey a long-awaited pretext for intervention. The Turkish action led to the occupation of one third of the territory of Cyprus, a proclamation of a separate Turkish/Cypriot state and the displacement of nearly 200,000 Greek refugees. ibid.
Do we have the right here in the United States to say that we’re going to kill tens of thousands, make millions of people as we have refugees? Robert Kennedy, Face the Nation 1967
The way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it show you how they would treat the rest of us if they could get away with it. Tony Benn
Owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. UN 1951 Refugee Convention
In the early hours of the morning on Tuesday 2nd January 1906 a boat approached British shores with an unusual cargo. Aboard were ten American sailors who had just been saved from death on a shipwreck … First, they had to meet the British authorities: the crew were questioned, refused entry, and incredibly, ordered back out to sea. Why? The shipwrecked sailors were officially destitute, alien immigrants. Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Immigration Row, BBC 2017
Half of Syria’s refugees are children, and we know what can happen to children who grow to adulthood without hope or opportunity in refugee camps. The camps become fertile recruiting grounds for violent extremists. Samantha Power
Hundreds of thousands landing on Europe’s shores. The beginning of the long road north ... Many fleeing the war in Syria. Others are escaping poverty. All desperate for something better ... Europe is divided. Panorama: Europe’s Border Crisis: The Long Road, BBC 2015
107,000 people landed on the Greek islands this August alone. ibid.
This is chaos in slow motion. ibid.
She’s on the bus, but the little girl isn’t ... It’s up to the people in the crowd to reunite mother and child. And all this to move people a mile. ibid.
Africa’s European dream: for people-smugglers it’s a billion-pound business. Now, Europe’s under pressure to crack down but at what cost? And will the migrant crisis ever end? Panorama: Africa’s Billion Pound Migrant Trail, BBC 2017
The EU is spending tens of millions supporting the Libyan coastguard to stop more boats, board them and take them back to Libya. ibid.
Migrants pay about $1,500 for a place amongst its boats. ibid.
Thousands of refugees locked down in Europe’s camps … I have been investigating camp conditions … Seeing a doctor can be a daily struggle. Some of Europe’s most desperate at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. Panorama: Coronavirus Crisis: Europe’s Migrant Camps, BBC 2020
Greece is one of the first countries in Europe to close its popular spaces and restrict crowds. Ten days later the country is in full lockdown; so is the camps. ibid.
So often the world sits idly by watching ethnic conflicts flare up as if these were mere entertainment rather than human beings whose lives are being destroyed. Shouldn’t the existence of even one single refugee be a cause for alarm throughout the world. Urkhan Alakbarov
Your enemy is not the refugee. Your enemy is the one who made him a refugee. Professor Tariq Ramadan
So Donald Trump is going to fuck them all. No excuses for such filthy words today. I’m only quoting the man whose Pentagon offices he just used to disgrace himself – and America. For it was Secretary of Defence James ‘Mad Dog’ Mathis who told Iraqis in 2003 that he came ‘in peace’ – he even urged his Marines to be compassionate – but said of those who might dare to resist America’s illegal invasion of their country: ‘If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.’
There’s no getting round it. Call it Nazi, Fascist, racist, vicious, illiberal, immoral, cruel. More dangerously, what Trump has done is a wicked precedent. If you can stop them coming, you can chuck them out. If you can demand ‘extreme vetting’ of Muslims from seven countries, you can also demand a ‘values test’ for those Muslims who have already made it to the USA. Those on visas. Those with residency only. Those – if they are American citizens – with dual citizenship. Or full US citizens of Muslim origin. Or just Americans who are Muslims. Or Hispanics. Or Jews? Refugees one day. Citizens the next. Then refugees again. Robert Fisk, article Independent online 28th January 2017, ‘Donald Trump’s arbitrary, cruel ban on refugees from Muslim countries sets a chilling precedent’
Europe is in the grip of a huge migration crisis. An influx of millions fleeing Europe and seeking new lives. I’m travelling to Europe’s gateway Greece to follow the journeys of migrant children caught up in the chaos. I see the suffering of the most vulnerable. Stacey Dooley: Migrant Kids in Crisis: Greece, BBC 2016
A third are under 18. ibid.
I’ve come to Syria to meet women who left the West to join the so-called Islamic State. Now IS has been defeated, their home countries don’t want them back: they see them as a threat. Most now claim they didn’t know anything about the brutality of IS. They say they stayed at home and cooked. Stacey Dooley for Panorama, Stacey Meets the IS Brides, BBC 2019
Since then the Kurds who fought IS to gain control of this part of Syria have been left with radicalised foreigners nobody wants. ibid.
One of the female guards was stabbed to death. Shamima Begum, who left the UK when she was fifteen … is no longer here, but I would like to talk to other British women in the camp. ibid.
Support for IS is still very strong. ibid.
… Inside their tents, but with the atmosphere so tense [sic] … ibid.
They [Yazidi women] were saying some of the Isis women were far worse than the men … No-one saw anything apart from an oven. ibid.
I finally hear British accents. ibid.
I didn’t turn my back on democracy. You did. You knew what Isis stood for. ibid. Stacey to Isis women
It’s hard to know where the truth lies. ibid.