Incredible fossil showing a dinosaur sitting on eggs

  • European countries are not just a refugee destination, they are also a source
  • UNHCR data shows a small but interesting influx of refugees from countries such as France, Germany and the UK
  • What are the stories behind the raw figures? Here are some of their stories

Refugees enter

Syrian and Iraqi refugees cross from Turkey to Greece in October 2015.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Ggia – CC BY-SA 4.0

In the 2015 refugee crisis, it was difficult for Europe to control a large influx of Syrians and other migrants, driven by war and poverty at home. Numbers have fallen since then, but at a price – Europe ‘s attitudes to migration and its external borders have hardened; Last Thursday, 150 migrants drowned off the coast of Libya.

The most deadly shipwreck in the Mediterranean this year – at least in part as a result of the removal of official search and rescue operations and criminals of NGO lifeboats – has not been widely reported. spread news across the continent.

Refugees out

Even the rich, liberal democracies of western and northern Europe generate streams of refugees.

Image: Reddit / trinitronbxb

The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, monitors refugee movements and strives to regulate them as best they can. Buried beneath the most significant numbers of streaming refugees in Europe is a smaller figure, for refugees from Europe.

  • As this map shows, Syria still red-hot, in terms of refugee numbers. According to the UNHCR, 6.7 million Syrians are refugees.
  • Refugee sources are at the next level Iraq, Iran and Israel / Palestine (between 100,000 and 1 million from each country).
  • As red turns to pink, we enter Europe, with the former Soviet Union, ex-Yugoslavia and Turkey as major source countries (between 10,000 and 100,000 from each).
  • A large part of Eastern Europe (In addition North Africa and other parts of the ex-USSR) they are yellow (between 1,000 and 10,000 refugees per country).

Escape from Monaco

Iceland, Monaco and Andorra are some of the most indigenous countries unlike UNHCR-registered refugees.

Image: Ruland Kolen

To varying degrees, war, civil strife, oppression and poverty could be cited as motivating factors for people to flee any of these countries. But as we move into green showers, the nations become richer and more liberal, and the reasons more secret.

  • Two Baltic countries (Estonia and Latvia) and three Balkans (Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece) sources between 100 and 1,000 refugees. These places may be struggling economically but are generally considered peaceful and inexpensive.
  • Even west of the former Iron Curtain, most countries generate between 10 and 100 refugees – not just larger ones like the RA, France and Germany, but also smaller ones like Belgium, Portugal no Austria.
  • The lowest regions (less than 10 refugees) include the least populous countries in Europe Ireland, Iceland, Denmark and Switzerland. But even the micronations are not refugee-free.

As this infographic shows, Andorra, Monaco and Luxembourg home countries have three refugees each. Two refugees came out San Marino, the other closed micronation within Italy (there were no Vatican refugees, however). Even Gibraltar is home to one lone fugitive. Who are these people? Why do they run away from places that many more people are struggling to get into? Here are two of their stories.

A combination of parenting cultures

The starchy skyscraper at the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw, where Norwegian Silje Garmo and her baby were given refuge.

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Thomas Quine – CC BY-SA 2.0

A recent article in German newspapers (The Zeit, 15 May 2019) comments on the case of a Norwegian woman who fled her country because she feared the state would abduct her child. Silje Garmo claims to have been harassed by him Barnevernet, Norwegian child protection organization. The group said Garmo was leading a “chaotic life”, which prevented her from providing appropriate care for the child.

The woman was afraid the group would arrest the child – as had happened with her eldest daughter. In May 2017, a mother and then a newborn baby went into hiding – fleeing to Poland shortly afterwards. Garmo eventually applied for asylum in Poland. This was granted in December 2018, bringing a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Barnevernet is often accused of being pregnant by hand, including several families of Polish immigrants who lost their children. This may be partly explained by the difference in cultural attitudes toward child rearing between liberal (1) Norway and conservative Poland.

Perhaps that breaking point is why Poland finally decided to grant asylum to Garmo, something that Polish authorities rarely do: it offers Poland a moral concession in its fight. for Polish parents in Norway who are trying to get hold of their children. That fight escalated earlier this year, with first Norway and then Poland eliminating console staff from each other’s diplomatic missions. Relations between the two countries are now at the lowest level of living memory.

Home education away from home

A mother gets her daughter’s home (with no connection to the families listed below).

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Jason Kasper – CC BY-SA 2.0

In 2008, the Romeike family fled Germany to the USA and applied for asylum. A devout Christian, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike believe in educating their five children – a practice strictly forbidden by German law.

After removing their children from the German public school system, the Romeikes received fines running into thousands of euros, and lived in fear of the German government taking their share. children. So they fled to the US, where up to 2 million children are legally housed.

It was the first time refugees to the U.S. exercised the right to give their children a home as grounds for protection status. Following the lead, a few other German home education families have found shelter in the US. Other German home buyers have gone to New Zealand and Canada.

In 2010, the Romeikes were given refuge in an overturned decision. However, in 2014 the Department of Homeland Security allowed them to stay in the country indefinitely.

They are likely to stay in America at the moment: in January 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld Germany’s ban on home education. The ECHR ruled that the law did not violate the human rights of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, a German husband and wife who had found a home for their four children. The children were evicted from their home near Darmstadt for three weeks in 2013, after which the Wunderlichs refused to suspend the home.

School attendance has been compulsory in Germany since 1918. Only children with severe illness, diplomatic children and child actors. Despite the ban, the homes of between 300 and 600 German children are currently being inspected.

Both of these examples point to child custody cases as the main source of refugee cases arising from the rich liberal democracies of Europe. Based on relatively complementary evidence, this may be an unreasonable decision. As mentioned, it is difficult to come up with individual stories about refugees from these European countries. If you know of any of them, please submit them.

(1) Updated 26 August 2019 – Reader J. Wiklund makes a better point on Norway ‘s view on raising children: “I would not say (e) liberal or modern. It is indeed a very old – fashioned Lutheran guide. It has the same tradition. Sweden, another Lutheran country, if the parents take drugs or drink a lot of alcohol, they do not trust children to have children in the old days, the Church was the watchdog on them, today it is the city (churches and civil parishes divided in the 19th century). “

Map by Reddit user trinitronbxb, found here on the Reddit MapPorn section. Rural overview by Ruland Kolen, pataset found here at the World Bank.

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