ALTROVE RIFUGIATI

The 20th of July is World Refugee Day and, once again, there is a renewed focus on the data of migrant arrivals and asylum seekers. However, despite the allarmism, the numbers show that there is no invasion.

The 20th of July is World Refugee Day and, once again, there is a renewed focus on the data of migrant arrivals and asylum seekers. However, despite the allarmism, the numbers show that there is no invasion.

by Jessica Cugini

Circa 20 million refugees and soldiers populate the African continent. The verb "popolano" is not accidental, since most of these women and men remain in the neighboring countries, if not in their own. Migration is often intra-continental, fueled by the desire to return to their own homes. Of the 65.6 million forced migrants, only a third leave their own continent. However, in the collective imagination, the invasion is here: in Italy and in Europe.

A collective image reinforced by the media reports that 2016 was a record year, a year that saw over 180 thousand migrants arrive in Italy (the record is probably 5 thousand more, since there were 176 thousand the year before) and dying, crossing the Mediterranean 5,022 people (a number which refers to the bodies actually recovered and which must therefore be considered as an estimate).

This year, according to the data shared by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr), from the 1st of May to the 31st of May, 60,309 people arrived in our country (26% more than in the same period in 2016). As was already announced, the number of people arriving is set to increase, because geopolitical conditions are not changed. In the meantime, however, Europe continues to litigate over how and who should withdraw migrants. The job relocation plan, stipulated in September 2015, foresaw that 160 million people would be relocated from Italy and Greece to other European countries between September. Today the number is down to just over 20 thousand.

In order to resolve the impasse, as a solution to the managerial delay of these expectations, the European Commission has decided to propose a reduction in the target, initially to 98 million, and now, with a further reduction, to 33 million, so as to be able to be more credible in view of September. 

...and they call it friendship 

The fact that, this year, a little more than a million refugees were taken in by the countries of the European Union. Mostly from Germany, France, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Europe and its 508.5 million migrants is home to just over a million refugees. Numbers that look ridiculous when compared to the world's top ten of friendly countriesin which no European state is present. In terms of the total value of the economic contribution per inhabitant, eight of the top ten countries receiving refugees are in Africa (Sudan, Chad, Uganda, Burundi, Niger, Rwanda, Mauritania and Cameroon), two in the Middle East: Lebanon and Jordan. To give a simple example: we Europeans are far removed from the proportions seen in Lebanon, which, with just under 5 million inhabitants, is home to 1.5 million migrants.

And in between Ismu Foundation points out that, in the first fifty months of 2016, the asylum applications submitted in our country are 60 million (in front of 60 million and 589 million asylum seekers), with an increase of 49% more than in the same months of 2016, and that this same period makes the Mediterranean Sea the most dangerous tract: today, of the 1.854 migrants who lost their lives on the journey to Europe, 1,717 died crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Mare Nostrum. 

Virtual empathy 

In the meantime, the headquarters city of European politics is on the rise. In order to pretend to be a refugee, the Residence Palace in Brussels has installed a multi-media truck that allows you to interactively experience the life of a refugee escaping from the eastern Congo. The conviction behind this project is that if someone proves on their own skin what it means to flee from those situations, then they understand better who arrives and who is more likely to be walking nearby. We need a virtual world to capture the real one, a multimedia truck that puts on the stage a kind of role-playing game, capable of arousing a little empathy in the confrontations of forced migrants.

Leggi anche (in English) Unhcr's recent global relationship. 

Source: http://www.nigrizia.it/notizia/rifugiati-altrove/notizie 21.06.2017