Posted on 29 January 2013
The Migration Policy Centre (MPC) has created a website on the humanitarian impact of the Syrian civil war, which has led 2.5 million people to flee their homes since March 2011.
syrianrefugees.eu was officially launched on 28 January, and brings together journalistic work and reports by researchers in countries receiving refugees. The website currently provides English-language resources on the EU, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, while a report on Syria in French will soon be translated and an English report on Turkey is forthcoming.
The MPC has compiled statistics from its own research, Eurostat and EU governments, and the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), which to date has registered nearly 600,000 refugees. Many more people have been displaced within Syria, or are awaiting registration.
Philippe Fargues, director of the MPC, says he intends to contribute to a better understanding of the Syrian refugee crisis, in addition to learning whether collaboration between academics and journalists is feasible. While journalists quickly respond to refugee crises, a specialist is needed to determine which facts are accurate and relevant, and what the ramifications of a given event are, says Fargues.
Journalists who have worked for French news agency AFP and newspaper Libération have been working on the Syrian Refugees website, embedding videos and images, creating an interactive timeline and an EU aid and asylum map. The latter demonstrates that funds have been committed by EU member states, with the largest sum of €80 million coming from the United Kingdom, and the number of asylum applications on the increase.
Despite the involvement of EU member states, the MPC director says more needs to be done: “No-one is doing anything to accommodate refugees, it’s incredible. It’s in our neighbourhood and all the countries involved [bordering Syria] are linked to the European Union by partnership agreements. In terms of meeting refugees in the territories of the member states, they are doing almost nothing; I think it’s important to explain this story.”
The MPC describes the Syrian civil war as the worst refugee crisis to affect the region in years, which poses a great threat to regional stability.
Photo credit: Mohamed Salman