When I shared in the Cogitation #26 my desire to help more on the humanitarian side, with the most visible aspect being the refugees who arrive here, fleeing from the war, my friend Marisa sent me a warning message where she stated that we need to use caution and common sense. She personally knows of (at least) one case where the family hosting refugee(s) ran into problems and she finds the help countries are providing now to be disproportionate when compared with other refugees from previous years who still face different obstacles and no one seems to care about them anymore. I cannot comment on the specific situation she knows about, as I have no knowledge of the facts (I only know that it happened, not what happened) but to me it's not surprising that situations like this happened and will continue to happen here and there, situations where refugees will abuse the goodwill of those who are helping them; we are talking about people so they are not all angels, some might be demons. And it's also very obvious that with the current crisis there is a much greater willingness on the part of other Europeans to help Ukrainians, when compared to others, but not only this is due to the proximity factor (physical, ethnic, cultural and religious at least) but also this refugee situation is different from the other refugee crisis that Europe has faced before.
And the top image, taken from an article from the New York Times published on March 15, is meant to demonstrate one of the big distinctions in this crisis. Not even 2 months have passed and the number of refugees caused by Putin's Invasion is much higher than the other refugees who had found shelter in Europe, and in this particular case focused on Ukraine's neighbouring countries. The same article shows the total numbers of refugees from various crises for the period of 1 year with the period of 18 days (at the times) to highlight how the influx of refugees from Ukraine is unprecedented. Looking at the latest numbers reported by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 5 million people have fled Ukraine since 24 February, of which around 4.5 million to Europe (to the West). For comparison, back in 2015 Europe had what was considered a refugee crisis, with 1.3 million people seeking asylum on the continent.
4.5 million in 8 weeks versus 1.3 million in 1 year; It is clear as day that this is a very different situation.
Adding to this factor we have to realise that the current refugees movement is mostly composed of women, children and the elderly, also very different than in 2015 and other older crisis (that are actually still happening). Men between 18 and 60 years old are, with some exceptions, forbidden to leave the country due to the general mobilisation, and I know there will always be those who manage to flee but the images we've been getting, even from volunteers like you and me that are ferrying refugees from Poland to other EU countries further West, only include women and children, at least the ones I've seen.
And another evidence that this situation is different than other ones is that more than 1 million ukrainians have returned to the country in the same period; in the first weeks those were mostly men going to defend their homeland but in the last days more women that flew initially are also returning, to join the reconstruction effort that already started in the regions that are now free of fighting and free of russians, like the Kyiv region.
It's a proof that this refugee crisis is much more dynamic and in a way temporary that the previous ones seen in Europe, again comparing to 2015 where most refugees came here to stay and make a new living; now it is already clear that many have simply ran away from the war and will move back as soon as possible.
From my own point of view, I'm not only concerned and desiring to help more just now, just because they are ukrainians, that are white christians or even just because I'm very invested in this war (due to the different reasons I already wrote about). Back in 2015 I already became outraged with the so-called (because I never understood why it was one from our perspective) refugee/migrant crisis and I believed that all of us, as fellow human beings, should have done more. You can see that was the case in 2 texts I wrote in the Summer of that year on my original blog (texts are in Portuguese but here are the translated titles if you are willing to read and translate them: There's only a problem because we are fools and I was wrong, I admit it).
But I'm under no illusion, the fact these refugees are people that look like us (other europeans) is a major influence. Eventually it influences even myself, as I always had a soft spot for Ukraine, surely a result of having worked with ukrainian ladies that were very pleasing to the eyes, and being portuguese I can relate to the "we are brothers" narrative coming from the much bigger neighbour that has a history of invading and occupying (portuguese have that sort of relation with the spaniards and ukrainians with the russians). But there's also evidences that the skin tone changes things, one being the many reports from the early days where citizens from other countries, also fleeing the war but with a darker skin tone, had to wait in line while those with a lighter skin tone would move ahead. I have to consider the caveat that some immigration policies might be at play for these situations, as it is possible (but this is just me guessing, I haven't checked on this) that ukrainians get an automatic visa when entering Poland but a refugee with a Yemen passport does not, so he has to wait longer for the immigration process to complete; but even if that's the case I'm pretty sure that polish have much more sympathy and are more compassionate towards their ukrainian neighbours, as they identify with them.
I also know that the portuguese would be very solidary and helpful with an hypothetical refugee crisis coming from Galicia (for whatever reasons) but much more reluctant in doing the same for a similar situation with refugees coming from North Africa.
So to wrap-up: this humanitarian crisis, even if comparable with others that affected Europe, is unprecedented. The number of refugees is much higher in a much shorter period of time and many of those are only temporarily running way, as it is already seen in the flux from the last days with a lot less people coming into Europe and more and more going back to Ukraine. The big majority, actually huge majority, are women and children. But as with all things in life, there are, and there will be, those who are coming here for other reasons, those that will immigrate here taking advantage of the simplified process and the assistance that they wouldn't receive otherwise, those that will have some less than good intentions. But all of those should not serve as an excuse for us to not act as decent human beings and to not offer help to those in need. Because as it can always happen, there might be a future where it will be us asking them for help. And I'm sure, 100% sure, that some of those who now refuse to assist and are against it, would be the first ones demanding their rights to be helped in the reverse scenario...
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