Syrian Crisis Must Not be Forgotten

Months have passed since Members of the European Parliament joined 20,000 European citizens and 100 NGOs to submit the HelpSyriasRefugees petition.

Calling on European leaders to take concrete steps to offer protection to refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria, the submission marked the culmination of 6 months of public campaigning by NGOs throughout Europe.

Recent tragic events in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip have demanded the attention of world leaders but the plight of Syrian refugees cannot be allowed to fall off the International agenda.  In the space of 5 years, Syria has gone from being the world’s second largest refugee-hosting country to the country producing the second largest amount of refugees.  Over 2.7 million vulnerable refugees have been forced to seek protection since the conflict began and more than 150,000 men, women and children have lost their lives.

The gravity of the crisis has been recognised by countries such as Sweden and Germany, the latter recently pledging to resettle an additional 10,000 more refugees from Syria in 2014.  However, greater displays of solidarity from other European nations are desperately needed.  

While the Irish Government should be applauded for the introduction of the Syrian Humanitarian Admission Programme earlier this year, a review of its present resettlement commitment is still urgently required in order to ensure that Ireland is appropriately responding to the worst refugee crisis in nearly 20 years.   

Syria cannot be allowed to become another forgotten crisis.