While the world watches Syria….

Nigerian refugees fleeing Boko Haram attacks, waiting to be registered in Chad.
Photo: UNHCR

No one could have failed to notice the widespread and tragic suffering currently being wreaked on the people of Syria by ongoing conflict between the government, rebels and extremist groups.  The international media has been flooded with photos of men, women and children displaced by the conflict and arriving – traumatised, weary, relieved – on European shores.  As at October 2015 UHNCR has registered more than 4 million Syrian refugees, mostly in neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.  That figure does not include the more than 7.6 million internally displaced persons still within the country.

There is no doubting the devastating human impact of the Syrian crisis.  The European Commission has described it as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis since World War II.  And no one would question the urgent need for the international community to provide life-saving assistance and access to protection for those displaced.  But while the world watches Syria, what has been happening elsewhere?

Did you know, for example, that violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) has forced almost a million people from their homes and, according to UNHCR, left some 2.7 million people in dire need of aid?  Or that ongoing violence in the region linked to Boko Haram has left more than 2.5 million people in four countries homeless?  On 27^th June this year, a single attack on the Nigerian village of Assage Nigeria forced approximately 6,000 people to flee for their lives.   In South Sudan the numbers of displaced have passed 2.6 million, and yet UNHCR’s operations there are currently only 28% funded.

Africa is by no means the only other region affected by violence and displacement, but with numbers like these, why is news of Nigeria, South Sudan and CAR not splashed across our screens?  So-called ‘mega-crises’ such as that currently taking place in Syria can open the eyes of the international community to the plight of those affected by war, conflict and insecurity.  Sometimes that awareness can help to galvanise the community into action.  Tragically, however, that action is not spread evenly across all those who need it.

In Europe, the growing disparity between the treatment of Syrian refugees and those from other countries is being increasingly felt, with workers accusing European governments’ pro-Syrian favouritism of creating a ‘humanitarian caste system’.  In Australia, while the government generously announced plans to resettle some 12,000 Syrians by the end of the year, it continues to lock up most of the rest of the country’s asylum seekers in over-crowded and unsafe detention centres.

The world should open their hearts to Syrians.  But they should also open their hearts to Iraqis, Afghanis, Nigerians, South Sudanese and the many other communities who have had their homes and lives torn apart by violence and disaster.  We cannot applaud our generosity to some while continuing to ignore everyone else.