Syrian displacement and protection in Europe

There are currently more than 2.8 million registered refugees from Syria. Ninety-six percent of these refugees are hosted by neighbouring countries – Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. With the exception of Germany and a few other limited initiatives, the primary aim of the European response has been to contain the crisis in the Syrian region and to reinforce Europe’s borders.

This event marks the launch of a new RSC Policy Briefing, ‘Protection in Europe for refugees from Syria’. Report authors, Cynthia Orchard and Andrew Miller, will provide an overview of the European reaction generally, as well as brief summaries of selected countries’ responses. They argue that containment of the refugee crisis to the Syrian region is unsustainable and advocate for European countries to open their doors to refugees from the region and to expand safe and legal routes of entry.

Also being launched at this event is issue 47 of Forced Migration Review on ‘The Syria crisis, displacement and protection’. Professor Roger Zetter, co-author (with Héloïse Ruaudel) of a major article in the issue entitled ‘Development and protection challenges of the Syrian refugee crisis’, will look at early recovery and social cohesion interventions and the transition from assistance to development-led interventions in Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. FMR47 is funded by the Regional Development and Protection Programme, a Denmark-led initiative with contributions from the EU, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, UK and Czech Republic, for whose inception report Professor Zetter was the lead author.

The event will be followed by a reception at 4pm. If you are unable to attend in person, you can watch live via a video link. For more information, please visit: www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/syrialaunch