The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nation’s main refugee agency, released its Asylum Trends 2013 report ten days ago (March 21). This report examines data on asylum seekers to 44 industrialised countries, including most European countries, the United States and Canada, as well as some countries in East Asia and the […]
Syria in turmoil The internal armed conflict in Syria continues endlessly with its cohorts of fleeing people. In addition to an estimated 20,000 civilian deaths, 2.5 million people have been afflicted, 1.2 million internally displaced and nearly 450,000 have sought asylum outside their homeland[1]. By mid-January 2013, the UN estimates that over 4 million people […]
Towards civil war or conflict resolution? The conflict in Syria has quickly escalated and prospects for peace – let alone peaceful regime change – seem unlikely. The human death toll is unknown. Accounts from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claim over 17,000Syrian deaths (11,897 civilians, 4,348 soldiers and 884 military defectors).[1] The UN […]
For the second time in less than a year an acute refugee crisis is looming in Europe’s neighbourhood. Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012 have several features in common. In both cases, a civilian population has been exposed to a war which has seen rebels opposing the regular army. In both cases, a sizeable […]
Pour la seconde fois en moins d’un an, une crise aiguë de réfugiés se profile au voisinage de l’Europe. Entre la Libye de 2011 et la Syrie de 2012, les parallèles ne manquent pas. Dans les deux cas, une population civile est exposée à la guerre que se livrent la rébellion et l’armée régulière ; dans […]
