Refugees

Excellent link, Lucky. That and this should answer some of the questions on here.

i100.independent.co.uk/article/when-people-ask-you-why-syrian-refugees-travel-to-europe-show-them-this--bJN8Icm9re

The boys and their mother have been buried in the city they came from. The father wanted them to go to Canada to live with relatives because they are Kurds. Kurds are not safe in either Turkey or Syria.
Kobani is in ruins, 70% of the city was destroyed in the fighting by IS suicide bombs and mortars, Kurdish counterfire and US air strikes using 500 and 2000lb bombs to smash IS positions. In most of the city there is no water or electricity and many of the remaining buildings have been booby-trapped.
I imagine the father is not all that bothered which side he fights for any more.

I just hope that none of you have to live above people who think it's perfectly ok to throw dirty nappies out of the window into the garden. And then not being able to communicate your objection to them. I make no apologies.

We should have done more to stop the bloody war in the first place. Five years ago.

Sugarpufffairy lives there. You can't whitewash any situation that exists. Being vulnerable and in need of compassion can't turn all people into saints. There is never going to be a fairytale ending to this.

It's just a total mess all round.

I am hearing too much about "these people", "they" how an area has gone to the dogs since "these people moved in".
I also disagree with the rationale behind the bravery of those who fought in both World Wars, it was not so that we could pull up the drawbridge and look after Number 1. It was to fight oppression, injustice,racism and genocide.
Sound familiar? Maybe like the sort of thing going on in Eritrea, Syria, etc?

sugarpufffairy Petra The expression "these people" is deameaning in the extreme and such a remark seems to show no compassion whatsoever.

Whatever you feel about the area in which you live you are not in a war zone threatened by an evil and oppressive regime.

I am quite appalled by how dismissive of the humanitarian plight of refugees some posters on this thread seem to be.

If any of us just happened to be born in and live in a different country we could be in this situation.

Don't do that again, Annie. You know exactly what I mean.

What people?

Sugarpufffairy. I understand completely what you are saying. I suspect there are many people on here who have never experienced the scenes you are describing.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26116868

I found this useful in trying to understand the conflict.

It is all very well to feel sorry for these people but they should have been content to get to the next country. I travelled by a reputable ferry company over 100 years trading without a drowning yet I worried for my children. I would never have taken my children on the tin cans these people took their children on. The first responsibility for children lies with the parents, us in the UK are way down the line having responsiblitiy for dead children of people who want and demand to go to certain countries. The first country should have satisfied them.
I live in a city with a multiple cultures. The area in which we had our first house is now where a lot of incomers now live. The scenes are awful the council are having to buy the houses from private landlords who gave up trying to keep up the building or the area. They use the streets as bins. They hang around street corners in gangs. They have commited serious crimes like rapes in the area (always white local women), at least one woman murdered and raped. There are womens' marching through the area trying to reclaim and make the streets safe for women to live, work and walk. It is scary to go there now.
Is this fair to us. There has just this minute been another situation in the said area. People are fighting with the police to deal with the crimes in the area. My family fought in two world wars so that I could be safe on the street of this country and now I am not.
SPF

We must look - unless we do, we cannot understand.

No. We should look.

I think my post of Fri 04-Sep-15 17:53:59 should carry a "You must see these images of the destruction in Syria but I warn you it is distressing" warning.

Well it's easy to express hypothetical contentment about taking up residence in a refugee camp.

Have you seen some of these camps? They are extremely basic and quite often in the middle of nowhere, adults and children dependent on subsistence rations and with not very much for adults or their children to look forward to. Some refugees have spent their whole lives in such camps. Would you be so "happy" to contemplate bringing your children up in such a place and perhaps never getting out of it?

I heard on a news items that the reason they don't want to go through the registration process in Hungary is because Hungary only recognises around, I think, 10% of applicants as being genuine asylum seekers, whereas other countries recognise a far greater number. (From what I have seen of Hungary, I'm not surprised at this as they seem to have a particularly negative and suspicious view of people whose cultures are different from their own.) If these people - who have undergone terrible and often dangerous journeys - are not granted refugee status, they will presumably be sent back. I would be pretty hysterical about going back to the sort of mayhem that Nelliemoser's link showed.

This link has photos of typical refugee camps. Would you like to bring up your family in one of these with perhaps no hope of ever leaving?

www.bing.com/images/search?q=Middle+East+refugee+camps&FORM=HDRSC2

Well said Nelliemoser. A close friend arrived in the UK on the kinder transport, she lost all her relatives to the gas chambers. Another close friend's parents managed to get themselves to the UK and he was born here soon after the war. None of their family in Warsaw survived the holocaust.

We're lucky to be an island race and to have avoided invasion for so many years. We have a stable political system, we don't always agree with it, or like our governments but we're fortunate in having democracy.

I'd definitely be hysterical in the situation so many refugees find themselves. Camps tend not to be either well ordered or safe - e.g. the recent examples of sexual abuse of children in the Australian camps and the rape of women in Yarswood. We know enough about institutions to know they aren't always safe places. Yes, safer than being bombed to **in Syria and so preferable to that but not something any of us would choose.

Nellie, difficult to absorb all that horror, is it any wonder they are in a state of hysteria , the fear of having to return there must be so strong

As previously posted I'd be happy enough in a safe well ordered camp.

Ok those who think the asylum seekers from Syria etc are being rash and panicking to get out of Syria. This is what a lot of that country looks like now.
www.google.co.uk/search?q=syrian+civil+war&biw=1138&bih=500&tbm=isch&imgil=M5rgENFagvqBKM%253A%253BJUHBfWblDRKOyM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fgeopoliticsmadesuper.com%25252F2015%25252F07%25252F27%25252Fthe-short-history-of-the-mess-that-is-syria%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=M5rgENFagvqBKM%253A%252CJUHBfWblDRKOyM%252C_&usg=__mm4mS3UNzQJ2wTLk_tY4X1zMPkE%3D#imgrc=M5rgENFagvqBKM%3A&usg=__mm4mS3UNzQJ2wTLk_tY4X1zMPkE%3D

What length would you go to protect your children? Look what happened to the Kinder transport children. Most of them lost all their families in the gas chambers. Their parents knew very well how appallingly dangerous Germany had become for them and decided to save them.

Britain has fortunately never been in the situation where so many have become refugees, evacuation is about the nearest we have come to that.

What would those whose posts on this thread appear to be unhappy about us accepting more refugees do if they and their children lived in a country which looked like that shown above? Would they stay where they are and run the risks of the madness of this evil regime? Would you go or stay?

The father and his family were heading for Canada, where they had a relative who was sponsoring them, but the Canadian authorities were being awkward about granting them entry.

Like most of you I cried for the Father of those babies. But then I read that he had been in Istanbul for some time working as a barber.
Turkey is not a third world country. Why wasn't he content to stay in a safe financial viable country. And although Turkey is a secular country it is predominantly Muslim.
We know that most of these would be migrants are believing the hype about Europe being the land of milk and honey.

" For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing"
Simon Wiesenthal.
I for one will admit to doing nothing about the refugee situation, except of course discussing it and thinking about it.
I see some places are sending blankets , tents and warm clothes, well done Leeds Festival and others.
Any ideas as to how people in general, Gransnetters in particular can make a difference to these fellow human beings ????

After all they have been through I would have hysteria too

They are demanding, Anniebach. I'm not disagreeing about their desparation but how long will it be before they turn the tide of sympathy? Yes of course they are human but so are the people who are caught up in this mayhem.

I think those ones we saw on TV had worked themselves up into a state of mindless hysteria. They're stuck now and can't see how to back down. I'd rather be in a safe ordered camp with my family as near my homeland as possible and among people who understood my culture and language than involved in a dangerous rush into the unknown.