The Arab States and the Refugees

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Gatestone Institute:

While the European Union and its member states totter under an overwhelming influx of refugees from Syria and other collapsing countries in the Middle East, the vastly wealthy Arab nations of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are sitting back and watching as Europe takes the toll.

 

In a December 2014 report from Amnesty International, various facts and figures are set out to show that what is happening with respect to (mainly) Syrian refugees is thoroughly unbalanced internationally, and notably within the Arab world itself. 95% of the (then) 3.8 million refugees fleeing Syria are located in five countries (although since then many have crossed the Mediterranean or gone to Greece from Turkey). With the exception of Turkey, those five countries are among the poorest in the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Here is Amnesty's breakdown of the figures:

 

Lebanon hosts 1.1 million refugees registered with UNHCR, which amounts to around 26 per cent of the country's population.

Jordan hosts 618,615 registered refugees, which amounts to 9.8% of the population.

Turkey hosts 1.6 million refugees, which amounts to 2.4% of the population.

Iraq hosts 225,373 registered refugees, which amounts to 0.67% of the population.

Egypt hosts 142,543 registered refugees, which amounts to 0.17% of the population.

Amnesty has called for at least 5% of the refugees to be resettled from the main host countries by the end of 2015, with a further 5% to follow by the end of 2016, giving a total of 380,000 people. And, no doubt, as more people flee the war there, as well as the violence in other Arab countries from Libya to Iraq to Yemen, these numbers will swell.

The report ends on a depressing note: the six Arab Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain) have offered zero -- repeat: zero -- places for desperate refugees.