Greek Camp

Europe is being faced unfairly with a global problem of hoards of men, women, and children abandoning their homelands and trying setup in other lands. Some of them are fleeing, while others are simply seeking a better life. Whatever their reasons, they are now swamping Europe and indeed threatening the very lifestyle of the communities they are desperate to join, aren’t they?

The problem European countries are facing is that these would be new citizens are arriving unannounced and unwelcome in increasing large numbers without any indication of where they actually came from or why – their documentation was either originally non-existent or has been lost on the way (even sometimes deliberately thrown away so that they can lie about their true origins to get asylum, or even their age to get logged as children).

So counties in Europe have faced millions of people suffering from civil war or seeking a better life, that are arriving on their shores in a manner unprecedented in history. They are heading out to reach Germany and other EU countries from the Middle East and Africa, encouraged by money grabbing inscrutable robbers & traffickers. The torrent is coming from (amongst other places) as far away as Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Darfur, Soudan, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, as well as Algeria, Kosovo, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Turkey, with Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Syria migrants accounting for more than half those reaching Europe,. Germany, France and the UK are popular destinations for those looking for a better life.

When they get to the Mediterranean coastline they are often faced with life threatening hazardous sea crossings in totally unsafe vessels, when many-many thousands of men, women, and children perish in capsized boats – a host of others have to be rescued. The attraction to reach Europe is so strong though that it is like a moth drawn to a light-bulb (killing itself), isn’t it? Europe’s open borders and willingness to accept these people on humanitarian grounds, simply acts like a magnet locking onto steel – so undeterred their numbers increase exponentially, don’t they? The consequence of all this is that the hoards arriving are bringing some countries like Greece and its islands, Austria, and Hungary to their knees. Many borders are now having hundreds of miles of security fences erected to (ineffectually?) hold immigrants back, as many of them cross into Europe unannounced, illegally and uncounted. [Countries like Morocco, Hungry, Turkey, Saudi Arabia (600 miles!), Spain, Hungry, and Macedonia etc]. Some countries of course have had border walls and fences for many years, but now it has grown like Topsy (some 65 states have them or are building them).

The European Union has desperately been trying to disperse the hoards of immigrants by getting member states to accept a quota – but it is having little joy.

The latest development in the saga is about allowing unaccompanied children to be taken in, and in the UK the ‘do-gooders’ are demanding the Country takes three thousand. But they ignore the practicalities, don’t they? In the UK we already have a critical situation when we are short today of some ten thousand foster homes for the placement of our own children – how can we offer succour to thousands of foreign children, who will be even more difficult to find families for? Moreover, what is the betting that their actual families will suddenly surface and demand to come to Britain to proved support for a so-called unaccompanied child? Then of course, without documentation you can’t rely on determining the real age of somebody claiming to be a child to get preferential treatment, can you? There have been many instances of adults claiming asylum as a child, who while waiting processing, simply disappear into the general population.

The UK’s policy has been to take a minimum of these would be immigrants, but to provide substantial monies in aid to support those taking refuge in camps in the local territories [Britain provides increasingly more money ( a billion pounds) than ANY other country (tenfold their contribution)]. This seems to be decidedly the best approach, as an open door policy simply encourages determined people and families to make the dangerous and arduous trek to Europe. This is anything but simply a European issue, and it is the United Nations that takes control of it, as it is one of their responsibilities, isn’t it? So what is that waste of time useless body actually doing, do you think? You probably guessed it – absolutely NOTHING.

[The European Union remains comatose by the scale of events – so there is no sign of a solution, is there?]