Alice Grissom - Staff Writerealiceg@uab.edu
On Nov. 16, an expert panel made up of UAB and Samford professors, a local attorney and two Syrian refugees took part in a discussion on the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.
Over 340,000 refugees have arrived in Europe by sea in 2016 alone, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, also known as the UN Refugee Agency. Over a million made the deadly journey in 2015. As of October 2016, UK newspaper “The Independent” reported the deaths of as many as 3,000 refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea in
2016.
Tina Rueter, Ph.D., the director of UAB’s Institute for Human Rights, which hosted the event, prefaced the discussion with an overview of the issue at hand and introduced the panelists.
Rueter clarified the terminology used in the discussion and emphasized the difference between migrants, internally displaced persons and refugees – namely, that refugees are “fleeing armed conflict, violence or persecution” across international borders, whereas internally displaced persons do not cross national borders. Migrants “move for reasons not included in the Refugee Convention [of 1951], mostly socioeconomic reasons,” Rueter said. She added that the panel could more accurately be said to be discussing the “Mediterranean migrant and refugee crisis.”
The panelists — coming from diverse backgrounds including Syria, Italy, the United States and Turkey — were each afforded several minutes to explain the effects of the Mediterranean migrant and refugee crisis in their home country.
Matthew Moore, a public health graduate student, said that he was impressed by the diversity of the panel.
“What was unique here was hearing the perspectives of several different individuals from different countries who are all affected by this one crisis,” Moore said.
Speaking from UAB were Catherine Crow, a former attorney specializing in immigration, refugee and employment law and now the director of International Students and Scholar Services; Abidin Yildirim, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, speaking on Turkey; and Tina Rueter, who in addition to being the Director of the Institute for Human Rights and moderator for the event, is also an associate professor of human rights, peace studies and international politics. Ali Darwish, who spoke from the perspective of a Syrian refugee, is a research assistant and Ph.D. candidate at UAB as well.
From outside the university came Serena Simoni, Ph.D., an associate professor at Samford University who discussed the Italy’s involvement in the crisis and Zabia Attar, Ali Darwish’s sister, a Syrian entrepreneur who recently escaped the war with other members of her family.
Citing international, U.S. and state law, Crowe went in-depth on who legally constitutes a refugee and what that means on various scales.
Ali Darwish contrasted Syrian’s welcoming treatment of refugees in the past with the current treatment of Syrian refugees on the part of the rest of the world.
“‘People do not become refugees by choice,’” Darwish said, quoting Samantha Powers, the current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. “I would like to show the world what the Syrians did, in the past, for refugees.”
Simoni told attendees of how Italy is “like a bridge in the Mediterranean basin” for refugees. The country boasts the second largest count of incoming refugees by way of the Mediterranean Sea in 2016, according to UNHCR.
“European governments are struggling to coordinate the response to the influx,” Simoni said.
“Tent camps are not a solution.”
From Yildirim the audience received a history lesson on the root causes of the conflict in Syria, and how the political climate in surrounding countries such as Turkey contributed to it.
When asked what students could do to help refugees, panelists agreed: most important was to spread accurate information and call state representatives.
“[Alabama] has cut off the resettlement of refugees in our state,” said Crowe, meaning that people must act as individuals if they want to offer assistance.
Moore said that he was glad to hear panelists “relating [the crisis] to what we can do here in Alabama.”
“That’s where change can happen,” Moore said. “Students should take it as their own initiative to educate themselves on this crisis. Hundreds of years from now, kids and grandkids will ask what we did to help.”
