Global refugee crisis requires a new approach

The approach to refugees that has worked since the Second World War is no longer fit for purpose

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, millions of people were displaced and on the move across Europe and the Middle East – at least 50 million refugees. To put the number into historical context, it was more than the entire population of the UK at the time.

The refugee crisis was so serious that international law and international agencies were formulated to deal with it. Two organisations were created. The first, in 1949, was UNRWA, formed to deal with the 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled from their homeland after the creation of Israel. Those refugees, and their descendants, are, incredibly, still with us, and number well over 5 million now. The second, the following year, was UNHCR, which still looks after refugees worldwide.

And yet, 60 years on, the refugee crisis gets worse. Last year, according to the UN, there were more refugees globally for the first time since 1945, around 51 million people. This includes Palestinians, but also Syrians, Iraqis, Somalis, South Sudanese, and those fleeing war in the Central African Republic, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What can be done about these refugees? The difficulty is that the world has changed since 1945, when the working assumption was that refugees could eventually return to their original countries. In cases where that was not possible – as with the half a million Germans who were pushed out of Yugoslavia – there was, at least, a Germany where they could be resettled.

Yet today, where can these refugees go? In the 21st century in the Middle East, many refugees have simply been ping-ponged around countries, with no real solution found. The Iraqis who fled the 2003 invasion ended up in Syria, as did Lebanese fleeing the 2006 Israeli-Hizbollah war. Now Syrians fleeing their civil war are heading to those two countries for safety, as well as to Jordan – already full of Palestinian refugees from 1948 – straining countries in the region. As the Syrian war and the Iraqi conflict continue, more refugees are being created. Where will they go, and what kind of life will they lead?

There isn’t an easy answer, but it is clear the old answers aren’t acceptable any more. What is needed, as this newspaper has argued before, is a new way of looking at refugees and their resettlement, as happened after the Second World War. Looking at conflicts piecemeal no longer works in the current global environment.