The Global Refugee Wave and Migrant Crisis

It's Serbia. They're not butthurt◊.

edited 30th Nov '15 1:18:23 PM by TerminusEst

Too busy trying to get into the EU?

I think some commentators have pointed out how Serbia has reacted more reasonable and less openly xenophobic towards the refugees than EU-member Hungary under Orban. Some attributed that to Merkel's Balkan policy which aimed to provide a prospect of joining the EU for all Balkan countries, whereas it also might be possible that the Serbian government sees no harm in acting like decent human beings unlike some other aforementioned person.

It'll be nice to, one day, see the Balkans united under a non-authoritarian banner.

As for Serbia, most of the nations handling the task of processing the bulk of the migrant wave are generally more low-key about the whole affair. Mainly because they are used to it by now.

Well is Serbia actually taking any in? My understanding was that the Serbian goverment is pretty much just acting as a courier, refuges come in one end and go out the other. A country is going to be less horrible to refuges if they're just passing though and not after asylum.

It's still a strain on a country which is more on the "poor" scale and which is full of people who would like the opportunity to successfully get asylum in Germany themselves but get rejected.

Still, I read a story a while back where the refugees claimed that Serb police/officials were the first to treat them like human beings (giving even basic aid and just not being dicks to them) on their journey.

Considering the twice largest group of asylum applicants in Germany are Serbians, it's perhaps a bit more surprising they aren't mad at the refugees for getting what they want. Though perhaps the officials who treat them decently aren't quite the same as the ones leaving for Germany.

Edit: Then again, maybe they do sympathize more with people fleeing from war when they might be all too familiar with the concept.

edited 30th Nov '15 3:51:17 PM by Mastah

Serbs and people from Kosovo do make up (or at least did in early 2015) a significant number of asylum seekers, but now I believe there are more people coming from e.g. Afghanistan I believe).

Interestingly when German politicians were arguing about declaring the Balkan as safe (which means that applications of people from the Balkans would be faster dealt with and declined) the government of Serbia and Kosovo requested that this status should be granted, because those countries were suffering from massive brain-drain.

Yeah, there really isn't any reason for people from former Yugoslavia to seek asylum in this day and age. The war's been over for 14 years.

There may be a case for the Roma population to though, as I believe the Roma often suffer some pretty nasty discrimination.

Yes, they are discriminated but they can't claim that there life is being threatened there, which is why -with some exceptions- their asylum applications will be rejected.

Last statistic I saw had Serbia clearly at the second place. Next one was Eritrea, I believe. It had to be at least as recent as when Syrian refugees became the number one asylum seekers.

Only 1% of asylum seekers from the Kosovo actually get their claim granted. Usually on technicalities on loopholes which are currently systematically getting closed. But it is naturally a hassle to house them until they get send back.

With the Syrians it's the other way around, they usually get accepted and the 1% or so which doesn't is usually denied on the grounds of another country (ie Italian) having them granted asylum already.

The Syrians isn't really the largest group of people which tries in Germany, it is just the group whose claims nearly always gets granted and that makes them number one on the list of the ones which actually get to stay.

edited 1st Dec '15 4:52:03 AM by Swanpride

Apparently, someone set fire to a building that was supposed to house around 150-180 refugees. The building was mostly wood, so it's been completely destroyed. The company that runs the place is deremined along with the Immigration Agency to get it done anyway.

Probably the usual suspects.

Finland and Germany seem to have quite the domestic terrorism problem when it comes to these arson attacks. Are the authorities managing to crackdown at all?

To some degree, but it's extremely difficult. These people tend to be individuals inspired by the Finnish Resistance Movement, a sub-branch of the Nordic Resistance Movement (Neo-Nazis) or other far-right groups. The ones perpetrating acts tend not to be members of it. In fact there's only a couple of dozen actual members in the Finnish branch, and they are extremely low profile, occasionally appearing in rallies and so on. They're far too smart to get caught for something like this.

The FRM only became a real problem after the migrant crisis started. They're garnering more support and they know it. Which emboldens the more extreme elements of Finnish society.

German police tackle mass brawl at Berlin refugee shelter

They do, but usually they only catch the people in question after they acted out. It is hard to do it beforehand because laying fire is easier than organizing weapons in order to shoot up people. Never mind that the gun laws are quite strict to begin with.

Yeah, hard to regulate fire starter. And most of these lone wolves aren't quite stupid enough to announce their intentions outside of sympathetic circles. All the authorities can do is set up guards and react to incidents.

So, I've found this (German) statistic on asylum seekers. Syrians are clearly the largest group but either I saw outdated statistics or I misremembered how many Serbians applied. A bit surprised how high Albania is up on this list though.

Well, there is a reason why Germany has put Albania on the list of the safe countries, along with the Kosovo and Serbia. In fact, all the Balkan states are now on the list, because all the requests were REALLY clogging up the system and cost the state a lot of money. A really high number of people try, but only 1% actually get accepted.

Of all the groups listed only the Syrians (provided that they actually are from Syria) will get the permission to stay more or less for sure. With Afghans a lot depends on gender and in which region they are living (some parts of Afghanistan are considered safer than others). Pakistani and Irani have a chance if they can convince whoever is responsible for their cases that they are in danger of getting killed in their homeland. For example if they are either Christians or Ahmadiyya or Gay.

edited 1st Dec '15 11:17:13 AM by Swanpride

Is that accepted or applied? Also keep in mind that long term numbers will be very different to short term ones, what with the current crisis changing the short term numbers dramatically.

The numbers of Afghans coming to Germany has also significantly especially after the battle of Kunduz in the second half of the year. I remember reading articles claiming that they became the second highest number of asylum seekers per month starting in September.

Still as you said, the numbers of migrants from the Balkans is ridiculously high, and it is good to see that the government is intensifying the deportation (German officials call it "Rückführung", (lead someone back) because "deportation" has some unfortunate implication in Germany due to history) of those whose request has been denied, because doing so will clear up space for genuin refugees and also help to prevent undermining the perception of refugees as econimic freeloaders.

The actual states are quite happy with this, too, because all those people going to Germany is quite a brain drain. They lost a lot of very smart people already during the Kosovo war.

And for the record, the high numbers were already a problem for quite some time. They are not directly connected to the Syrians. Sometimes it seems as if half of the World wants to life in Germany. Which is why it is so important to send a clear message that the asylum system is for people in desperate need of protection and not for people simply living in a poor country. We can take quite a number of people, but not everyone who dreams of living in Germany. If we try, we are soon forced to ignore the ones who are the most desperate.

edited 1st Dec '15 11:53:03 AM by Swanpride