Nearly three months after publishing a book about the horrific abuses African refugees go through trying to reach safety, there’s one question I’ve grown used to being asked: “Why is it that the Irish public don’t care?”
I don’t have a good answer for that. Is it a lack of knowledge? Is it racism? Are we all humans, or are some humans more human than others?
My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route documents how, since 2017, nearly 100,000 men, women and children have been intercepted at sea by an EU-funded coastguard supported with EU surveillance, and forcibly returned to Libya, a failed state. There, they are often locked up in detention centres that Pope Francis, among others, has compared to concentration camps.
Politicians and officials who work with them tell me they know what’s happening is horrific, but they are unwilling to act unless the general public shows an interest. What’s the point in changing a policy only to be voted out during the next election, they will say.
A lot has changed for US women since 2016. What does that mean for Kamala Harris?
Forty years of the Dart: ‘Dealing with the public is one of the hardest things anyone can do’
Mark Francis: Acoustic Oceans review – A fascinating development in the Irish artist’s decades-spanning career
Fake phone calls, meeting pretend-presidents and being ambushed by your parents on TV: The rituals of All-Ireland week
In public events, I’m also regularly asked if Irish people have any idea how bad things are in “forgotten” countries with “forgotten” crises. So here are some statistics:
* In Tigray, northern Ethiopia, as many as half a million people are said to have died in a war that began in late 2020, and has seen all sides accused of war crimes.
* Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are facing the worst drought in four decades, with a recent estimate saying someone could be dying every 48 seconds from hunger. The Ukraine war is contributing to the crisis, pushing up the cost of food and fuel.
* Nearly 20,000 Congolese refugees have crossed into Uganda since March because of a new outbreak of fighting, a small number compared with the 5.5 million displaced inside the country.
* In South Sudan, 4.5 million people are said to be struggling with severe hunger across 52 counties, including 87,000 people already living in famine-like conditions. The World Food Programme just announced it will be suspending food aid for 1.7 million people due to “drastic” underfunding.
* Some 18 million people are said to be facing severe hunger in the Sahel, West Africa. Last year, more than half a million people were displaced from their homes by violence in Burkina Faso.
‘Suffering in silence’
“The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the immense gap between what is possible when the international community rallies behind a crisis, and the daily reality for millions of people suffering in silence within these crises on the African continent that the world has chosen to ignore,” Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said when announcing their list of the organisation’s 10 “most neglected displacement crises” in the world. The list was compiled after an analysis that took into account the lack of funding, lack of media attention and lack of international political and diplomatic initiatives for each situation. This year, for the first time, all ten are in Africa.
Now consider:
The number of people who have applied for asylum in Ireland is always low, because, as an island on the western edge of Europe, it is hard for people to reach us without legal routes. In the first five months of 2022, the number came close to 5,000: almost twice the total of 2,649 for the entirety of 2021. Those numbers are separate from Ukrainians, who are given immediate rights to stay and even to work in Ireland, because of the invocation of the EU’s temporary protection directive.
This has led to what Nick Henderson, CEO of the Irish Refugee Council, has warned is becoming a “two-tiered system” for people seeking international protection.
Speaking at Borris Festival in Carlow last weekend, South African human rights activist Bulelani Mfaco said this vastly different treatment for Ukrainians “is pitting two groups against each other because you have preference for one over the other”, when the law should treat people as equals.
“Even when a country is at war, you don’t suspend any of your prohibitions on equality,” he added. “Nigerian children wait weeks and months for documentation so they can attend school, whereas Ukrainian children get documentation promptly from [the] same institutions.”
Another thing has struck me. Daily, I hear complaints on the radio or from business owners about the lack of hospitality workers in Ireland. But many newcomers aren’t allowed to work. In Sweden, I know many recently arrived refugees now working in hospitality, care homes, or whatever other jobs they find. If Ireland extends a hand, Ireland can benefit too.
In the short term, there are tens of millions of people who need protection. In the long term, why is it that we heed calls for hundreds of millions of euros of foreign aid, but don’t question whether enabling safe migration from the most troubled parts of the world could be a better form of assistance, allowing people to directly transfer cash they earn to friends and relatives desperate for help?
This weekend, I randomly sat in on a discussion about how the apocalypse is represented in literature, what it means and whether it could really happen. I came away struck by one message: every day is an apocalypse for someone. Each day, someone’s world is ending.