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Root cause of the European refugee crisis

By Han Dongping | China Daily | Updated: 2015-10-14 07:45

Thousands of refugees, from Syria, Iraq and Libya, are fleeing the conflicts raging in their homelands and seeking asylum in Europe. Such a large scale displacement of people is a crisis not only for the refugees themselves but also for the European nations as they struggle to provide for these unfortunate asylum seekers.

As the refugee crisis arose, the official response of the United States was that it trusted the European nations would be able to deal with it without outside help. If they needed expertize to deal with the refugees, the US Coast Guard, which has experience in dealing with such a problem, would be more than willing to share ideas. However, as the pressure mounted for the US to provide help, it first offered to accept 10,000 refugees, and then revised the number to 100,000 by the year 2017.

Despite the Western rhetoric about human rights and international laws not many Western nations want to take in large numbers of refugees. The so-called democratically elected Western governments are supposed to represent the opinions and interests of their own constituents, most of whom are unwilling to share what they have with the unfortunate asylum seekers, so it is not surprising that many Western nations, including the US, are unwilling to accept the refugees.

Root cause of the European refugee crisis

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