My recent visit to Lesbos in Greece
gave me a clear sense of just how much European towns and cities are
struggling to cope with this refugee crisis. The capital of the Greek
island has a population of 30,000 – and had just registered 15,000
refugees en masse in order to get them on to ferries heading to
the mainland. Until then thousands of people, predominately refugees
fleeing the war in Syria, had been sleeping rough in public parks, or in
tents in parking bays at the main port.
The crisis in Europe pales in comparison to the experiences of towns and cities in the Middle East. There are more Syrian refugees in Istanbul alone than there are in the rest of Europe. In Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the arrival of refugees has sometimes doubled the size of hosting towns. Despite this, municipal authorities are under intense pressure to carry on providing services that residents have come to expect, while also extending these to refugees, with little or no increase in resources.
In all the many column inches on the European refugee crisis, one point has barely received a mention: the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees are not in refugee camps. Rows of white tents in an otherwise sparse landscape are often featured in the media, but the reality is that 80% of Syrian refugees have sought refuge outside of camps, and the majority of these are living in urban areas – whether in “informal tented settlements”, rented rooms, or half-finished buildings.
This is not just a characteristic of displacement in the Middle East. A recent review of protracted displacement by the Overseas Development Institute showed that 59% of refugees around the world are in urban areas, and this figure grows each year. More than half of all internally displaced people (ie. displaced in their own country) are also in towns and cities.
The crisis in Europe pales in comparison to the experiences of towns and cities in the Middle East. There are more Syrian refugees in Istanbul alone than there are in the rest of Europe. In Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the arrival of refugees has sometimes doubled the size of hosting towns. Despite this, municipal authorities are under intense pressure to carry on providing services that residents have come to expect, while also extending these to refugees, with little or no increase in resources.
In all the many column inches on the European refugee crisis, one point has barely received a mention: the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees are not in refugee camps. Rows of white tents in an otherwise sparse landscape are often featured in the media, but the reality is that 80% of Syrian refugees have sought refuge outside of camps, and the majority of these are living in urban areas – whether in “informal tented settlements”, rented rooms, or half-finished buildings.
This is not just a characteristic of displacement in the Middle East. A recent review of protracted displacement by the Overseas Development Institute showed that 59% of refugees around the world are in urban areas, and this figure grows each year. More than half of all internally displaced people (ie. displaced in their own country) are also in towns and cities.
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