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FM
Former Member

Syrian refugees: how Canadians can help

By | Daily Brew – 4 hours ago, 3 September, 2015, Source

 

Graphic photos of a boy who drowned and washed ashore near a resort in Turkey have touched a global nerve and brought the issue of the plight of millions of Syrians fleeing a civil war into focus again.

 

Three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his five-year-old brother Galip and mother Rehan were aboard a boat ferrying migrants to Greece when they drowned on Wednesday.

 

The tragedy hit close to home in Canada after reports said the family was hoping to find refuge in this country.

 

The Canadian government says it has committed more than $700 million in humanitarian, development and security assistance in response to the Syrian crisis, which began in March 2011 and promised to settle 10,000 Syrians with the help of churches and private groups earlier this year.

 

While details unfold on how the federal government will address the refugee crisis, Canadians can help by donating to one of the following charities:

  • Canadian Red Cross says it has established a Syria Crisis Fund to provide “life-saving assistance to Syrian families.” Click here to donate.
  • Care Canada: is providing life-saving assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. Click here to donate.
  • Oxfam Canada says it is providing aid and long-term support to hundreds of thousands of people affected by the crisis across Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Click here to donate.  
  • World Vision says it has supported more than 440,000 Syrians in Syria, as well as those who’ve fled to Lebanon and Jordan. Click here to donate.

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I saw some pictures of the refugees crisis on CNN. It's sad to see that little boy laying on the beach dead. It's a human crisis to risk death by escaping the fear of death in your own country.
FM
Lets forget for a while about   Syria Just Think about Gaza strip and what the US is letting Israel do to
Humans It's a shame

Syrian refugees: how Canadians can help

By | Daily Brew – 4 hours ago, 3 September, 2015, Source

 

Graphic photos of a boy who drowned and washed ashore near a resort in Turkey have touched a global nerve and brought the issue of the plight of millions of Syrians fleeing a civil war into focus again.

 

Three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his five-year-old brother Galip and mother Rehan were aboard a boat ferrying migrants to Greece when they drowned on Wednesday.

 

The tragedy hit close to home in Canada after reports said the family was hoping to find refuge in this country.

 

The Canadian government says it has committed more than $700 million in humanitarian, development and security assistance in response to the Syrian crisis, which began in March 2011 and promised to settle 10,000 Syrians with the help of churches and private groups earlier this year.

 

While details unfold on how the federal government will address the refugee crisis, Canadians can help by donating to one of the following charities:

  • Canadian Red Cross says it has established a Syria Crisis Fund to provide “life-saving assistance to Syrian families.” Click here to donate.
  • Care Canada: is providing life-saving assistance to Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. Click here to donate.
  • Oxfam Canada says it is providing aid and long-term support to hundreds of thousands of people affected by the crisis across Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Click here to donate.  
  • World Vision says it has supported more than 440,000 Syrians in Syria, as well as those who’ve fled to Lebanon and Jordan. Click here to donate.

 

FM
Originally Posted by Cobra:
I saw some pictures of the refugees crisis on CNN. It's sad to see that little boy laying on the beach dead. It's a human crisis to risk death by escaping the fear of death in your own country.

It is very sad. Canada and USA MUST take in these refugees.

FM
Originally Posted by yuji22:
Originally Posted by Cobra:
I saw some pictures of the refugees crisis on CNN. It's sad to see that little boy laying on the beach dead. It's a human crisis to risk death by escaping the fear of death in your own country.

It is very sad. Canada and USA MUST take in these refugees.

Canada is a vast empty land.  They should take all the Christians and prosecuted minorities from Syria and Iraq and let the Islamists kill each other.

FM

'How to sponsor a Syrian?' is Canada's top Google query on refugees

Company tracked top searches between Sept. 2 and Sept. 3.

By Mike MacDonald, CBC News Posted: Sep 04, 2015 12:13 PM ET, Last Updated: Sep 04, 2015 12:30 PM ET, Source

 

With the Syrian refugee crisis receiving renewed attention, Canadians are increasingly taking to Google to find out more about the ongoing conflict.

The technology company tracked the top five search terms relating to the Syrian refugee crisis from Sept 2. at 9 a.m. to Sept. 3 at 9 a.m. Here are the most popular queries and our attempts to answer them.

1. How to sponsor a Syrian refugee in Canada?

According to the government of Canada website, "a number of organizations have signed sponsorship agreements with the Government of Canada to help support refugees from abroad when they resettle in Canada. These organizations are known as sponsorship agreement holders. They can sponsor refugees themselves or work with others in the community to sponsor refugees."

2. How to help Syrian refugees?

There are numerous organizations operating in Canada providing support to Syrian refugees. CBC News has compiled a list of some of the most prominent groups.  

3. Why is there a refugee crisis?

Syria has been embroiled in a civil war since March of 2011. The unrest began within the context of Arab Spring protests and large demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad's government.

4. How much does a refugee cost Canada?

"It's an unanswerable question," said Audrey Macklin, Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto. "How much does a Canadian cost the government?"

 

According to the Canadian Council for Refugees, "refugee claimants and refugees recognized by the Immigration and Refugee Board receive no special income assistance. They may, depending on provincial regulations, be entitled, like other residents, to social assistance."

5. What is a refugee?

According to UNHCR website,  the term "refugee" applies to any person who "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it."

FM

Manitoba to accept more Syrian refugees, increase aid

Deaths of boys, mother prompt many Canadians to ask how they can help refugees fleeing war in Syria

CBC News Posted: Sep 04, 2015 9:14 AM CT, Last Updated: Sep 04, 2015 9:39 AM CT, Source

 

Manitoba is opening its doors to more Syrian refugee families and increasing its contribution to local settlement services organizations by $40,000.

 

"Manitobans, like all Canadians, are deeply distressed by the tragedy of forced migration currently unfolding in the Middle East," Premier Greg Selinger said Friday morning at the legislative building.

 

"We are committed to helping to alleviate the suffering of these people as best we can."

 

The refugee crisis in Syria has been ongoing since the outbreak of civil war in 2011 and according to the United Nations Refugee Agency there are now more than 4 million Syrian refugees.

 

Humanitarian assistance has become a lifeline for refugees unable to provide for their family's basic needs including food, water and health care, Selinger said.

 

"Syria's civil war is widely regarded as one of the worst humanitarian disasters of modern times," he said  "It would be irresponsible to turn our backs on the suffering of our fellow human beings.

 

"As a collective global community, we must do all that we can to try and facilitate a lasting peace."

 

International attention on the crisis was galvanized this week by photos of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, found lifeless on a Turkish beach after fleeing Syria with his family.

 

Kurdi, his brother and his mother all drowned when their boat, bound for the Greek island of Kos, capsized.

 

Their deaths have prompted many Canadians to ask how they can help refugees fleeing the war in Syria.

FM

10 moving photos of Europe's migrant crisis

 

The photographs of a three-year-old Syrian boy found dead on a beach in Turkey are among the most powerful to have emerged from Europe's migrant crisis.

 

But many other moving pictures have been taken over the years, illustrating the dangers of the migrants' journey or the treatment they have received on arrival in Europe.

 

Isa and Ibrahim, both from Mali, being pulled from the water

1. Juan Medina was working as a photographer for a local paper in the Canary Islands in 2004 when yet another small boat arrived, packed with men from sub-Saharan Africa. As a Spanish Civil Guard patrol approached, it capsized and nine men drowned. Medina photographed two of the 29 survivors, Isa and Ibrahim, both from Mali, as they were pulled from the water. The shot won him a World Press Photo award the following year.

FM

Tourists help a migrant boy on La Tejita beach, Tenerife

2. The Canary Islands was still one of the main destinations for African migrants two years later. By this stage the boats were often leaving from Mauritania or even Senegal, instead of Morocco - a perilous journey across 1,000km of the Atlantic. Many people arrived starving and dehydrated. This photograph taken on Tenerife's La Tejita beach shows tourists trying to help a young boy, and earned Arturo Rodriguez a World Press Photo award in 2007.

FM

Golfers and migrants in Melilla

3. Two tiny Spanish enclaves on Morocco's Mediterranean coast, Ceuta and Melilla, exercise a magnetic attraction for people trying to reach Europe. Here the continent is just a razorwire fence away. Jose Palazon, who works for migrant rights group Pro.De.In Melilla, took this picture of one golfer in mid-swing, while another gazes at a group of men (and one policeman) perched on the fence. "It seemed like a good moment to take a photo that was a bit more symbolic," he told the El Pais newspaper.

FM

Migrants with mobile phones on the beach in Djibouti

4. Migrants passing through Djibouti, on the Gulf of Aden, sometimes save money by buying a SIM card from neighbouring Somalia on the black market. Photographer John Stanmeyer met a group of them standing on the coast waiting to catch a faint signal. "It communicated the universality of all of us," he says. "We really are standing at a crossroads of our collective humanity. Where are we going? What does it mean to be human?" The photograph won a World Press Photo award in 2014

FM

Cradle on Turkey-Syria border

5. By the time migrants reach the Mediterranean, most have already completed a gruelling journey over land. In the heat and dust of this desolate spot on the Syrian-Turkish border, Murad Sezer of Reuters would normally have encountered crowds of families with wailing children. But on one of his visits it was quiet - empty except for an abandoned child's cradle. "For me, it signified a kind of hopelessness," he says. "If its owners had felt hope, perhaps they would not have left it."

FM

Migrants on a boat near the Libyan coast

6. Massimo Sestini took this photograph from an Italian navy helicopter in 2014, but it was in fact a repeat of a shot he had taken in identical circumstances the year before. The new photograph, taken between Libya and Italy, showed that nothing had changed - but was also more striking because of the behaviour of the passengers. "I thought if I could get the right angle straightaway, directly above 500 people who have spent five days and nights on a boat, they would probably all look up, ask for help, wave - so this year I thought I'd try again and it worked." The shot won a World Press Photo award earlier this year.

FM

Antonis Deligiorgis and Wegasi Nebiat

7. In April this year a wooden sailing boat carrying Syrians and Eritreans smashed on rocks as it attempted to land on the Greek island of Rhodes. Greek army sergeant Antonis Deligiorgis, who was having a coffee with his wife on the seafront, dived into the waves and rescued 20 of the 93 people on board singlehandedly. One was Wegasi Nebiat, a 24-year-old Eritrean, pictured being brought ashore by Deligiorgis, on the left of the picture. Another, a pregnant woman who later gave birth in Rhodes general hospital, told staff she would name her son after the man who had saved her.

FM

Laith Majid, holding his son and daughter in his arms

8. This photograph shows a Syrian man, Laith Majid, holding his son and daughter in his arms, after a journey from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos in an inflatable boat that been steadily losing air. "An entire country's pain captured in one father's face," tweeted @MaryFitzger, after it was published in the New York Times. "I am overwhelmed by the reaction to this family's tears of relief. This is why I do what I do," wrote German photographer Daniel Etter.

FM

Refugees and riot police on Greece-Macedonia border

9. When Macedonia closed its border to migrants last month, after declaring a state of emergency, thousands spent a night in no-man's-land. The following morning they tried to push through police lines, leading officers to fire stun grenades into the crowd. AP photographer Darko Vojinovic captured this young father's despair. In the previous three weeks 39,000 migrants had been registered as they passed through the country en route for Serbia, and then Hungary - a member of the European Union.

FM

Abdul Halim Attar, pen seller of beirut

10. This photograph went viral on social media a week ago. Who was the desperate man selling pens to support his family in the Lebanese capital Beirut, and how could people help him? He was quickly identified as Abdul Halim Attar, a Palestinian refugee from Yarmouk in Syria - and a crowdfunding campaign was launched on Indiegogo. It has already raised $181,000. Attar was overcome when he was told about the fund, says Gissur Simonarson, an Icelander who posted the original viral tweet. Attar's goal is to set up an education fund for Syrian children - and to return home from Beirut as soon as this becomes possible

FM

In pictures: An emotional arrival in Europe

30 August 2015, From the section Magazine, Source

 

More than half of the 264,500 people who have crossed the Mediterranean in the hope of settling in Europe this year have arrived in Greece - and most of those have landed on the five Greek islands closest to the Turkish coast. Photographer Fernando Del Berro watched some of them arrive on the northern shore of Lesbos.

 

In a dinghy full of Syrian refugees, a man holds a baby aloft

Fifty metres from the shore Fouad, from Damascus, raises his two-month-old baby above his head and cries "Freedom!" Many of the other passengers also erupt in cries of joy.

FM

Two women hugging after they reach the coast of Lesbos

For some the relief at the end of the risky crossing brings tears. Many tell stories of the Turkish coastguard firing water cannon in an attempt to fill the boats and make them sink.

FM

Tamara

Those who cannot swim find the journey traumatic. Children may need comforting. Tamara, from Syria, has salt water on her hair, face and clothes, but it will dry rapidly in the scorching heat.

FM

Refugees take selfie by beach

A couple take a celebratory selfie next to the flimsy boat that carried them to Europe. Smugglers charge 1,000 euros for adults and 600 for children. One boat may carry 60 people.

FM

Man holding child, helps woman to ascend hill

Saad, from Idlib in Syria, holds his nephew while helping his sister to clamber up the slope behind the beach. Local volunteers often meet the boats, hand out water, and explain how to find buses that travel to the island's main town, Mytilini.

FM

Refugees on road

For a long time the Turkish coast remains visible behind the travellers. Syrians fleeing a distant war, dragging babies and belongings, have become a familiar sight on the island.

FM

Refugees on bus

The UNHCR and Medecins Sans Frontieres run four buses daily to Mytilini from two northern villages, Molyvos and Sykamineas. But up to 1,000 people may arrive on this coast in 24 hours, so some cover the full 65km on foot. Saad and his family are lucky enough to have seats.

FM
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

Syrian refugee children from the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad sit under a make shift tent in Akcakale, in Sanliurfa province, Turkey.

Syrian refugee children from the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad sit under a make shift tent in Akcakale, in Sanliurfa province, Turkey. (Umit Bektas/Reuters)

These are the victims of weakling Obama failed policies in the ME.  He sat back and watch ISIS overran town after town in Syria and Iraq while he "led from behind".  The Europeans are equally to blame for toppling Gadaffi and others then walking off not thinking "mission accomplished".  It's very unfortunate seeing the innocents people suffering due to these misguided policies.

FM
Originally Posted by baseman:
Originally Posted by Demerara_Guy:

Syrian refugee children from the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad sit under a make shift tent in Akcakale, in Sanliurfa province, Turkey.

Syrian refugee children from the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad sit under a make shift tent in Akcakale, in Sanliurfa province, Turkey. (Umit Bektas/Reuters)

These are the victims of weakling Obama failed policies in the ME.  He sat back and watch ISIS overran town after town in Syria and Iraq while he "led from behind".  The Europeans are equally to blame for toppling Gadaffi and others then walking off not thinking "mission accomplished".  It's very unfortunate seeing the innocents people suffering due to these misguided policies.

Extremely sadden to see the extremely slow response of many of the countries.

 

One can also remember that the then West Germany immediately responded  when Russia - the then Soviet Union - invaded the then Czechoslovakia in 1968. The escaped citizens were immediately accepted in Germany which provided superb accommodation, work permits and also training for those who did no speak the German language.

 

Similarly, Canada, US_of_A, Britain and other countries provided immediate protection, accommodation and other support to those in the said countries plus those who were, over time, transported to the said countries.

FM

There are those views on the matter you raised, Cobra.

 

There are poignant issues at the time of the incidents, similar to the then Czechoslovakia, Hungary plus current incidents specific in Europe.

FM

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