A Mass Migration Crisis, and It May Yet Get Worse

[Purveyor]

By ROD NORDLANDOCT. 31, 2015

SID, Serbia — They arrived in an unceasing stream, 10,000 a day at the height, as many as a million migrants heading for Europe this year, pushing infants in strollers and elderly parents in wheelchairs, carrying children on their shoulders and life savings in their socks. They came in search of a new life, but in many ways they were the heralds of a new age.
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There are more displaced people and refugees now than at any other time in recorded history — 60 million in all — and they are on the march in numbers not seen since World War II. They are coming not just from Syria, but from an array of countries and regions, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, even Haiti, as well as any of a dozen or so nations in sub-Saharan and North Africa. They are unofficial ambassadors of failed states, unending wars, intractable conflicts.

The most striking thing about the current migration crisis, however, is how much bigger it could still get.

What if Islamic State militants are not beaten back but continue to extend their brutal writ across Iraq and Syria? What if the Taliban continue to increase their territorial gains in Afghanistan, prompting even more people to flee? A quarter of Afghans told a Gallup Poll that they want to leave, and more than 100,000 are expected to try to flee to Europe this year.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/world/europe/a-mass-migration-crisis-and-it-may-yet-get-worse.html?_r=0

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Add to that the mounting effects of climate change making whole regions unsuitable for farming...

...and we will witness the most massive migrations ever experienced by the human race. And the coming conflicts will be horrific. I don't think most people have any understanding of the magnitude of the problem.

[MattSh]

2. Maybe now the EU will think before they support America's newest militaristic adventure...

If there was one lesson that should have been learned from Iraq, it's that stability and support of democracy are side thoughts of American militarism. In fact, if either happen, planners throughout the USA and the EU should be suitably shocked. Yet, after the mess that was Iraq, the EU enthusiastically signed on to further adventures without a single thought as to what another bout of instability would mean for the EU. A refugee crisis was highly predictable, and that no one in the EU gave that a single thought says much about the bankruptcy of the EU.

[bemildred]

4. I'm just amazed that 70 years on from WWII, none of them saw it coming. nt

[KoKo]

6. It begs the question of how people wondered how the Holocaust could have happened.

"Who Could Have Known?" .....and we've heard that before explaining "9/11."

[bemildred]

7. "How soon we forget".

The US (Edit: "west's&quot political classes have become very, very good at forgetting.

Unfortunately that does not lead to good government.

[progree]

3. Let's not leave out unsustainable population growth in many countries

For example, population growth in Africa is expected to grow from 1.2 billion to 5.6 billion by 2100, and that projection includes a reduction in fertility rate.

The total fertility rate (TFR) has been declining in Africa over the past decade, but has been doing so at roughly one-quarter of the rate at which it declined in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1970s.
In some African countries, the TFR decline appears to have stalled.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3192285/World-s-population-soar-11-billion-2100-HALF-live-Africa-claims-report.html

Also many countries in the water-poor Middle East are rapidly growing.

The failure of fertility rates to fall as much as expected has caused the U.N. to raise its world population forecasts recently.

http://www.populationconnection.org/



It's interesting (and no coincidence IMHO) that all of the countries and regions listed in the OP are all high population growth rate countries:

They are coming not just from Syria, but from an array of countries and regions, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, even Haiti, as well as any of a dozen or so nations in sub-Saharan and North Africa.

And in our hemisphere, it is quite interesting that the source of many of the Latin American migrants to the U.S. are in the high population growth countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua (the "orange" countries in Central America on the map. Haiti too, BTW is orange).

[KoKo]

5. It's not a "mass Migration" though. It's a Refugee Crisis.

It's amazing that NYT & CNN refers to this as Migration and International News refers to it as a Refugees Crisis

Of course what else should we expect from NYT & CNN after all these years of their war mongering.