Aid donations are only one part of a successful response to Europe’s refugee crisis, two humanitarian leaders warned, as international donors, meeting in London on Thursday, pledged billions of pounds to support Syrian refugees stranded in the Middle East.
William Lacy Swing, director of the International Organisation for Migration, and Vincent Cochetel, head of the UN refugee agency’s Europe bureau, said separately that the pledges were welcome but no substitute for an end to the war in Syria or an increase in legal routes for refugees seeking to reach the west. Swing said aid was an important element in a complex formula. “But clearly the most important thing is to stop the war. In the meantime we have to save lives and to improve lives – and that’s by educating children and creating jobs.”
The British government, one of the organisers of the conference, has said aid is the only way of stemming the flow to Europe, as it could pave the way for more jobs for some Syrians in the Middle East.
But Swing also called for western countries to step up resettlement schemes, arguing Syrians would be less likely to go to Europe by illegal means if they believed they had a genuine prospect of getting there through legal channels.
He added: “The more resettlement countries you have, and the larger resettlement quotas there are, the likelier it is that people will say: ‘Hey, if I wait a while longer, then maybe I’ll get to go [to Europe through legal channels].’ But that’s not the case at the moment because the refugee numbers are too high and the countries of resettlement are too few.”
Swing’s comments were echoed by Cochetel. He said that in addition to aid European countries needed to resettle more people from the Middle East, and to uphold their promise to take 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece, the countries on the frontline. So far EU states have taken just 272 refugees from Italy and Greece.
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