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Why are Syrian refugees heading into Europe?
Syria is in the middle of a civil war, there are several factions all fighting for authority of the region, one of which is the Islamic State. Thousands of Syrian refugees have been killed and displaced. With the close neighbors of Syria overflowing with refugees and unequipped to aid such a large number of refugees. The poor living conditions of nearby refugee accepting countries has lead Syrians to head into Europe in the hopes of better living conditions and life.
Aid needed
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs states on their website that "Syria is one of the most complex and dynamic humanitarian crises in the world today" estimates there are 13.5 million people in need of humanitarian aid, there are 4.8 million who have fled the country, and another 6.6 million still living within Syria who have been displaced by the violence of the civil war. And while the UN does have a plan for helping the Syria people they are well underfunded having raised only 7.8% of their required funding needed for their Strategic Response Plan.
Apathy in west and the gulf
Funding and aid to refugees has been surprisingly sparse from the western world, the conflict has been going on in Syria since 2011, but only recently gaining widespread attention in the west after a image surfaced of a 3 year old Syrian boy was published in the British newspaper the Independent in fall of 2015. Since then there has been a widespread debate on the handling of the refugee crisis by the European Union and the western world as a whole.
These photos come a year after the United Kingdom ended a search and rescue operation, Mare Nostrum, that prevented an estimated 150,000 migrants and refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean. They did this under claims that the search and rescue encouraged more people to attempt to enter EU illegally. Instead the choose to focus more on border security than worrying about the death toll this would cause.
Why aren't we doing more?
A large part of the problem with accepting Syrian refugees is the amount of political fear mongering that goes on in the west. Islamic State is a big part of that fear mongering, that terrorists could slip through the lines and get into the country by masking as refugees. This is a reasonable fear as the United States, and Europe particularly has been in the past hit by some very heavily covered terror attacks. Looking at the numbers this turns into debate similar to airplanes versus cars debate. While car crashes lead to more deaths overall and are a much greater threat to your life, airplanes crashes are much bigger and more reported on. In the United States you are much more likely to be shot by a fellow American than ever ever even encounter a terrorist. Annual domestic gun deaths in the U.S. is ten times the total number of American deaths (at home and abroad) in the past three decades.
Most frustrating is this argument calls those most hashly affected by terrorism terrorists. After the attacks in Paris the GOP lawmakers said that they would not allow Syrian's into their states. Obama responded to this announcement saying "The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism... It is very important ... that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism." This makes it difficult for those interested in helping the refugees within the government from doing so.
