More victims, more helpers, but too little money: On the world day for humanitarian aid is a huge gap between aspiration and reality of international emergency assistance is disclosed.
First the good news: never has the world raised so much money for humanitarian aid, and never have there been so many people in crisis and war zones, humanitarian aid.
However, the success is complete balance already. Because of war, climate change and poverty are driving more and more people in the escape. Approximately 130 million people were in need of 2016, according to the United Nations on humanitarian aid.
“People are not refugees, it is the misery of refugees,” says FR Frido Pflüger, Director of the Jesuit refugee service Germany (JRS). In view of the wars and conflicts in Yemen, Syria, the Horn of Africa and in Afghanistan he considers the debate on the protection of EU external borders for “window dressing”.
“People will come anyway. You are going to have to wait in Libya, until there is a crossing opportunity,” he predicts. “We always do so, as if that would just be our thing, but you have a right to live in Dignity.”
Stingy Donors
For a life that respects also the Dignity of people in crisis, in need of more money. According to the UN office for emergency relief OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) exists between the aid and the payments actually made called for a huge gap.
This year, only 9.4 billion dollars have been paid out of the 23.5 billion dollars of needed relief that were agreed on at international donor conferences. Germany has increased its funding in 2017 to a maximum value of 1.4 billion euros.
“9.4 billion dollars is much too little! I call on the world community to do more to close this gap quickly,” asks Bärbel Kofler, Commissioner for human rights policy and humanitarian aid of the Federal government, in an opinion for the DW. The world community was able to help all the needy people.
“Border control alone is not a solution”
Like most of the actors in the field of humanitarian assistance, the SPD politician Kofler penetrates to the Expansion of legal opportunities for Immigration for refugees: “We need a European answer, and we have to create legal channels of Migration, which enables people to find without the dangerous Crossing on the Mediterranean sea protection in Europe”, says the Commissioner for human rights.
Human rights Commissioner Kofler: “Much too little”
Is supported Kofler from the man, the limits is as the Director of the EU border protection Agency Frontex for the control of the EU external co-responsible: Fabrice Leggeri. “Border control alone is not a panacea,” Leggeri in the DW clear Interview. A solution should consist of several elements.
“The reasons for the Migration have to be removed, so war, conflict, poverty and Hunger,” said Leggeri. “And finally, it must also be legal ways in which refugees can request asylum, without putting themselves in the hands of human traffickers.”
Since the end of 2016, Frontex is involved in the framework of the EU military Operation “EUNAVFOR Med” in the fight against human Trafficking networks. Among other things, the Agency also trains the Libyan coast, officers of the guard.
Maritime search and rescue in Distress
Search and rescue is also one of the tasks of Frontex. According to the border protection Agency Frontex has contributed only in Italy and Greece last year to the rescue of 90,000 people.
Refugee rescue in Mediterranean sea: the helper putting your life in danger
For thousands of refugees every help comes too late. You are drowning in the Mediterranean sea. But not only you, also humanitarian workers go more and more often in danger of their lives. In the statistics of the “Aid Worker Security Database” (AWSD) are registered in the period from 2007 to 2017 a total of 3159 violent attacks against humanitarian workers, 1122 of them were murdered. Most of the attacks (965) occurred in Afghanistan.
The aid organization Doctors without borders accuses the EU member States to hinder the humanitarian work of aid organisations more and more. “The EU’s massively supported Libyan coast guard threatens humanitarian distress rescuers, and to expel them if necessary by force of arms from the newly declared Search – and-rescue zone,” said Volker Westerbarkey, the head of Doctors without borders in Germany. “This is an outrageous procedure.”
His record for the world day for humanitarian aid, to commemorate the victims of the attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad on 19. August was proclaimed in 2003, is bitter. “The climate compared to civilian rescue operations will always be hostile,” says Westerbarkey. “We have observed that the protection of people fleeing is often the foreclosure of Europe.”