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Countries At The World Humanitarian Summit Aren’t Walking The Walk

A group of world leaders and representatives pose for a photograph at the World Humanitarian Summit, in Istanbul, Monday, May 23, 2016. CREDIT: YASMIN BULBUL, ANADOLU AGENCY, POOL VIA AP
A group of world leaders and representatives pose for a photograph at the World Humanitarian Summit, in Istanbul, Monday, May 23, 2016. CREDIT: YASMIN BULBUL, ANADOLU AGENCY, POOL VIA AP

For the first time ever, delegates from 175 countries converged Monday in Istanbul, Turkey, for a two-day United Nations World Humanitarian Summit to address immediate crises, like the refugee influx into Europe due to serious conflicts in places like Syria and parts of Africa. More than 125 million people require humanitarian assistance globally, of which 60 million are affected by forced displacement through conflict and disasters around the world.

“We are here to shape a different future,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at the summit, where he urged participants to help reduce the global number of displaced people by half by the year 2030. “Let us resolve ourselves here and now not only to keep people alive but to give people a chance at life in dignity.”

The aim of the Humanitarian Summit may have fallen short of its compassionate namesake, however. Officials from Greece, Kenya, and Turkey took the opportunity to slam the international community for not doing enough for refugees. All three countries have long been leaders in providing safe passage for refugees in their countries. But in recent times, even their governments have been looking for ways to shut down established refugee safe havens, a challenge that could lead to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

Greece

A bus moves a migrant family to an organized camp during an operation to evacuate the makeshift refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the northern Greek village of Idomeni, Tuesday, May 24, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos
A bus moves a migrant family to an organized camp during an operation to evacuate the makeshift refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border near the northern Greek village of Idomeni, Tuesday, May 24, 2016. CREDIT: AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos

Greece has long been an entry point for refugees and migrants leaving the Middle East. By the end of February, more than 100,000 refugees and migrants from Afghanistan and Syria had arrived in Greece just in this year alone.

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During the summit, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed concern about the number of refugees in his country. In response, he called for a “new vision for humanity” that involved help from the international community. Tsipras also noted that there were security challenges for his country to deal with refugees.

“We have a strong conviction that, in order to deal with this challenge, we need a new vision relating to humanitarian aid,” Tsipras said. “We will not be able to unfold this new vision without also creating a new vision for humanity as a whole.”

“Seventy years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights underlined the need to protect the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all people. Since then, significant steps have been made in order to ensure that human rights and humanitarian law are standards on which all countries are judged but we still have some way to go,” he added.

Tsipras’ speech came after riot police tore down makeshift refugee camps over the weekend at Idomeni, a Greek village that lies along the Macedonian border. As many as 8,200 refugees have set up camp in Idomeni after Macedonia formally shut its border with Greece in early March. A Greek government refugee crisis committee spokesperson said that the refugees would be relocated to “industrial premises,” or state-supervised camps, around Greece, USA Today reported.

Kenya

Somali children smile as they sing during class at the Illeys primary school in Dagahaley refugee camp north of Dadaab, Eastern Kenya, 100 kms (60 miles) from the Somali border, Thursday Aug. 11, 2011. CREDIT: AP Photo/Jerome Delay
Somali children smile as they sing during class at the Illeys primary school in Dagahaley refugee camp north of Dadaab, Eastern Kenya, 100 kms (60 miles) from the Somali border, Thursday Aug. 11, 2011. CREDIT: AP Photo/Jerome Delay

Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said at the summit that while his country was committed to humanitarianism, his government would still go ahead with plans to shut down two of the largest refugee camps in his country, citing economic and security reasons as justification. The shutdown of those two camps alone could displace more than 600,000 people, most of whom are from Somalia.

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“The camp was a security threat, a haven for terrorism and conduit of contraband goods as well as a danger to the environment,” he said. “Kenya has been faithful to her international obligations of humanitarian assistance but no country can shoulder humanitarian responsibilities at the expense of the security of her people and the refugees themselves.”

Though he was not at the summit, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta affirmed the decision, stating that it was time to return Somali refugees back to their home country.

“As Kenyans we have decided that the visitors we have been hosting for more than 23 years have to be helped to return to their country where they can continue with their own lives,” Kenyatta said. “We still recognise them as our brothers and sisters. We also recognise our neighbouring country and we will continue doing business with it.”

Ban acknowledged that Kenya has been “extraordinary” in being a host country for refugees over the years, but also pointed to the “potentially devastating consequences of prematurely ending refugee hosting for hundreds of thousands of people.”

Turkey

A Syrian refugee child stands outside a commercial space that her family has rented to live in, in a neighborhood of the city of Gaziantep, southeastern Turkey, Monday, May 16, 2016. Turkey has taken in some 3 million refugees — including approximately 2.7 million Syrians — making it the country with the world’s largest refugee population. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) CREDIT: AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
A Syrian refugee child stands outside a commercial space that her family has rented to live in, in a neighborhood of the city of Gaziantep, southeastern Turkey, Monday, May 16, 2016. Turkey has taken in some 3 million refugees — including approximately 2.7 million Syrians — making it the country with the world’s largest refugee population. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) CREDIT: AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis

As the host country for the summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t mince words for the international community for failing to help resettle Syrians. Turkey is home to at least 2.7 million registered Syrians. Under a controversial deal struck with the European Union (EU) in March, the EU would resettle one Syrian refugee from Turkey for every Syrian deported from Greece.

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Erdogan highlighted his country’s generous response and indicated that his country had already spent $10 billion to handle the crisis, but only received less than a half million dollars from the European Union. The European Union committed $6.7 billion in aid to assist Syrians in Turkey, according to Human Rights Watch.

Erdogan said that he expected other countries to shoulder a “fairer share” of the refugee crisis.

“We have not been able to receive the necessary support and contribution from the international community on the refugee crisis, and we now expect a fairer sharing of the burden,” Erdogan said.

But the human rights group Amnesty International has alleged that Turkish officials violated refugee rights. Most recently, the organization claimed that 12 Syrians who were returned from Greece to Turkey under the EU-Turkey deal were held in detention centers without access to legal representation. And Turkish border guards allegedly shot at and beat Syrian refugees trying to cross into the country recently, according to Human Rights Watch.

“I always say this about Europe: they’re constantly lecturing to the rest of the world about human rights, but…the first real test, they’re faced with a million refugees and you’ve seen everything cracking, everything sort of breaking down,” Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, told Newsweek.

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Not all international groups who have a vested interest in the wellbeing of refugees were present at the meeting. That’s because aid groups have criticized the meeting for including non-binding measures, which allows state actors to withhold from signing up for commitments that they weren’t already committed to. Doctors Without Borders pulled out of the summit earlier this month, calling it a “fig-leaf of good intentions” and claiming that countries have failed to take on humanitarian actions in conflict areas, while allowing systematic violations to continue.