UNICEF ministers to Syrian refugees streaming into Iraq and other neighbouring countries.
Photo Credit: UNICEF/Iraq 2013/Marshall Tuck

Accept more Syrian refugees, urges analyst

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While Sweden says it will grant permanent residency to Syrians fleeing the civil war, the United Nations is asking western nations to help ease the burden on nearby countries experiencing a massive influx of refugees.

More than two million Syrians have left the country. That’s 10 per cent of the population. Another 4.25 million are displaced within Syria.

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Some of the about 280 students who attend a school run by the Lebanese aid agency Beyond Assocation. Only one in six Syrian children living in Lebanon as refugees attends school. © Derek Stoffel/CBC

Countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq are groaning under the burden of the refugee influx. Lebanon hosts the most and its health, education, water and sanitations systems are overstretched. In Jordan, the refugees have increased the country’s population size by 10 per cent putting pressure on resources, services and infrastructure.

Syrian cities have been “wiped off the maps”

Sweden’s decision to let 8,000 Syrians already in the country get permanent residency allows them to put down roots and recognizes that the refugee crisis will not end any time soon, says Bessma Momani, associate professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.

“This is a crisis that won’t go away,” says Momani. “…in many of the cases these people don’t even have homes to go back to. There’s so much damage that the cities that have the highest numbers of refugees are actually cities that have almost just been wiped off the maps.”

“Not just a refugee problem”

The United Nations and western countries need to stop seeing this as just a refugee problem, says Momani. She thinks they need to start talking about permanent resettlement and is hopeful Sweden will start discussing the issue in the European Parliament. She hopes countries like France and the United Kingdom will admit more Syrians, but is doubtful Germany will particularly since there will soon be an election there and the move might not be popular.

“Canada… not doing enough”

As for Canada she says “Unfortunately we’re not doing enough.” The government has announced it will resettle 200 extremely vulnerable refugees in 2013 and 2014. It will also allow private sponsorship of up to 1,100 Syrians over and above the normal number of people allowed into the country under this program in 2014.

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Prof. Bessma Momani of the University of Waterloo says Canada could admit more Syrian refugees. © International Monetary Fund

“We could do so much more,” says Momani. “Canada has a very large Syrian diaspora community. Many of those are in family businesses. We could do more in terms of family unification.

“We also have a lot of Syrians who’ve applied through the skilled workers program which has the kind of qualifications that Canada needs and many of them have applications that precede this crisis. So, one of the things that could be useful is to process those, to expedite them.”

Canada a large provider of aid to Syrians

Canada is expediting the processing of family class applications for Syrians, writes Nancy Caron, media relations advisor for the government’s Citizenship and Immigration department in an e-mail. She notes Canada is one of the world’s largest providers of humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees. The department of foreign affairs says Canada has already provided $317 in humanitarian, development and security assistance in response to the Syrian crisis.

On Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Canada intends to play a larger role in helping Syrians affected by the civil war by increasing contributions for aid.

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