It is a sobering thought. One in every 113 people on the planet is now a refugee. The United Nations says that the 65.3 million refugees it counted at the end of 2015 is the highest since records began. While it may be argued that in the years of the World War II, when the Japanese invaded China and the Germans drove into Russia and western Europe the figure was higher, but nobody was really counting then. Besides, this UN figure is monstrous enough. Large parts of the populations of strife-torn countries are fleeing, marching in waves in search of safety and some sort of life for them themselves, away from the death and destruction in their homelands. On top of this there is a proportion of people who see an opportunity to travel with genuine refugees, so that they too can live in more prosperous parts of the world. Pakistan may be a violent country with its western borderlands in the grip of tribal insurrections, but in truth Islamabad has never exerted full control of this region any more than the British did when they ruled the Indian Subcontinent. Pakistan cannot be compared with its neighbor Afghanistan for the death and destruction of a seemingly interminable civil war. Few Pakistanis have a good reason to flee their country. But Afghans, Iraqis and most of all Syrians have completely legitimate grounds to seek to escape. Syria, once a beautiful, prosperous amalgam of different communities has been turned into a savage hellhole. What the butchers of the Assad regime have not destroyed, the bloody killers of Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) have ruined. Meanwhile, Iraq has never recovered from the US-led invasion. Almost from the get-go, the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government of the deeply discredited Nouri Al-Maliki, set about destroying the trust of the Sunni community, as he danced to the dictates of the ayatollahs in Tehran with their strategy of deadly interference in the Arab world. Among the millions of refugees are also people from Somalia and Eritrea who have despaired of peace and security at home. Then there is the substantial proportion of sub-Saharan migrants, who pay people traffickers to smuggle them through Niger, Chad and finally Libya and onto rickety boats to head for southern Europe or more likely rescue by naval craft from EU countries. Countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali are engulfed in civil strife, but the majority of the sub-Saharan Africans making the perilous journey are almost certainly economic migrants, funded by their families to make it to Europe, find work and send back money. Such an ambition is understandable but unfortunately their presence in the already-considerable flow of desperate people who really do need somewhere else to go, is adding to the political pressure being felt by Brussels. European governments talk airily about investing to improve the economic opportunities for citizens in these sub-Saharan countries, but whatever is done is clearly going to be too late, even if it is not too little. Action needs to be taken now. A far tougher stance must be taken on this class of migrant. If screening reveals them to be opportunists, they should be sent straight home. Europe is having enough trouble coping humanely with refugees who legitimately need a welcome.
