What Is The Refugee Crisis?
According to CAFOD, there are more people on the move than ever before. Every minute, 30 people around the world are newly displaced. Half of the world’s refugees are children and thousands take flight without the protection of parents or other family members.
According to the UN, more than a million refugees had crossed into Europe by the end of 2015. The majority were fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. But the question among all this is why? Well, there are many reasons why refugees feel that it is a safe option to flea their countries, however some refugees don't get the choice. The most common reason refugees flea their countries is due to war or conflict that's putting their and their family's lives in grave danger.
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A large proportion of the people who have crossed the Mediterranean since the 2015-2016 peak in arrivals originate from Syria, where a conflict has been raging for more than eight years
The journey by boat is extremely dangerous and more than 1,000 people have already lost their lives making this trip in the first ten months of 2019.
Even when refugees arrive in Greece, for example, they are being housed in dangerously overcrowded reception centers. After Greece, the main destinations for refugees and migrants reaching Europe by boat are Spain, Italy, Malta and Cyprus.
Many of the refugees carry little more than the clothes they are wearing on their journeys. Thousands of people every day are in need of food, shelter, clean water and sanitation.
Find Out More
Click the link below to take you to an informative PowerPoint presentation with more facts and figures on the crisis:
Watch this YouTube video by the BBC to find out more about the trend in migration: