U2 call for ‘humanitarian leadership’ in refugee crisis

It has partnered with Citizens United Kingdom to launch a resettlement project which needs people to lobby local councils to increase numbers of refugees resettled in their area, as well as helping personally welcome them and host them.

According to Eurostat, more than 200,000 people applied for asylum in Germany past year, followed by Sweden, Italy, France, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

Today, we are in the midst of a global and complex displacement crisis.

The JustGiving website said that 14,000 people from 50 countries have already helped raise more than £350,000 since the start of August.

And in that sense, this display of progressive people-power, across the EU, might come as a timely reminder that, when the people of Europe find common ground and speak with a clear voice, they can change the direction of the Union that, for all its flaws, has delivered two generations of unprecedented peace and prosperity across western Europe.

While experts point to the fact that the majority of refugees prefer to remain within their country with a view to returning when the calamities end, this is no longer an option for Syrians.

Ukip is right about one thing, though; and that is that the present refugee crisis presents the European Union with a defining challenge, and one that will determine whether it has any future worth fighting for. Earlier this year, 400 refugees drowned off the coast of Libya in an attempt to escape a country left in chaos after US and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation intervention.

The suffering of those affected by the refugee crisis gripping Europe has galvanised tens of thousands of Britons into raising funds and gathering supplies to help the humanitarian relief effort.

Austrian media reported last week the discovery of 71 dead refugees who suffocated after being stuffed inside of a truck in Austria, and on Wednesday the photo of a 3-year-old Syrian child, identified as Aylan, shown washed up, face down and presumably dead on a beach in Turkey. Governments are wary of the political backlash these migrants could trigger whenever they are welcomed. Migration in a capitalist system where the world is split into haves and have nots is not a choice but a forced act of desperation.

The number of deaths are reported but not much is done to ease the crisis.

In Germany, for instance, there have been violent clashes between neo-Nazis and security staff outside refugee centers.

Accordingly, Catrambone and his wife, Regina, set up the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a nonprofit organization helping to rescue refugees and migrants on the Mediterranean.

The racists threw stones, bottles and firecrackers.

Germany and the EU have been pushing for EU country members to accept a plan for sharing asylum seekers, a proposal firmly rejected by Britain and several eastern European countries.

“That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots”.

It noted that Syria is the latest country following Iraq and Libya to become the victim of U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Applicants have to submit their application online, and if they get a notification telling them they have won the “lottery”, they have to present their documents and pass an interview in a USA embassy, before being given the right to remain in the US.

Similar to US racists like Donald Trump and many others, Hungary is building a 110-mile-long fence along its border with Serbia to keep out an accelerating flow of refugees entering from the south. The millions of potential new residents – many of whom would drive up unemployment and further burden the welfare state – would only exacerbate these problems. It has grown rich off the exploitation of not only its own working class but oppressed countries around the world pillaged by colonialism and imperialism.

Who decides on that definition of fear or persecution varies by country.

It’s little wonder then why so many Europeans – to the consternation of pundits and EU officials – don’t want these migrants flocking to their lands.