This essay series explores the human costs and policy challenges associated with the displacement crises in the Middle East and Asia.
In 2014 the UNHCR reported that the number of people forced to flee their homes had exceeded 50 million for the first time since World War Two, and that the exponential increase in the number of those forcibly displaced had already stretched aid organisations and host countries nearly to the breaking point.
Since the release of that UNHCR report, the worldwide crisis of displacement has, if anything, worsened. The two concurrent crises unfolding in the Mediterranean and the Andaman Seas at the time the report was issued are tragic examples of this grim reality.
The circumstances that have driven the many thousands who have risked or lost their lives making these perilous journeys cry out for greater awareness and deeper understanding. Of equal importance is critical examination of the mindsets, tools, and methods that have guided the responses to the crises — the impact such measures appear to have had and the lessons that might be drawn from them.
What myths or misconceptions have pervaded discussions and/or responses to these emergencies? And how have such misunderstandings impeded or distorted the response to them? How, and how effectively have individual countries dealt with the flow of new arrivals? In what manner, and to what effect have the European Union and ASEAN addressed these crises? And, finally, what types of constraints or capacity deficiencies have hampered the responses to them?