The world is in a grip of a refugee crisis.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the global population of forcibly displaced people has almost doubled in the last decade, from 43.3 million in 2009 to 70.8 million in 2018, a record high.
The agency cites the Syrian conflict as one of the principal drivers, but also other conflicts in the Middle East such as Iraq and Yemen, parts of sub-Saharan Africa such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, as well as the massive flow of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh at the end of 2017.
This has come against a backdrop of surging anti-immigrant sentiment and rising populism in some countries, with world leaders such as Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte initiating policies designed to stem the flow of refugees and immigrants.
Acts of humanity
But where national governments have arguably begun to turn their backs on refugees, there have been incidents where ordinary, everyday people have rushed to fill that void. Over the past few years for example, there have been several incidents of Rohingya refugees being rescued by Indonesian fishermen from Aceh, with one case in 2015 which saw 677 migrants brought ashore by locals.
According to Assistant Professor Marina Kaneti at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, this simple act of humanity bore a wider significance in the context of the world's current political climate. "Indonesia is not a signatory to the refugee convention and Indonesia itself had not been a proponent of supporting the Rohingya refugees", she said.
"And so the case of the fishermen actually saving the Rohingyas was going against what the Indonesian government had developed as an official policy."
Since 2015 there has been a clampdown on sea trafficking routes by the Thai government, with a marked drop in those attempting to make the journey. When they have though, the fishermen of Aceh have continued to come to their aid. In another incident in April last year, fishermen rescued five refugees who had been stranded at sea for almost three weeks.
Rohingya Crisis
Over a million Rohingya — a stateless Muslim minority in Myanmar — have fled the country since the 1990s, with recent violence seeing a huge upsurge in refugees since 2017. Much of the recent media coverage has focused on the fleeing of refugees to Bangladesh, but another country where many have also fled to is India, where they have been met with some suspicion by the authorities and their plight has become increasingly desperate.
It was recently reported that hundreds of Rohingya families have left India for Bangladesh since seven Rohingya men were deported to Myanmar last October.
It was also reported that more were preparing to flee a crackdown by the Indian authorities.
StoriesAsia journalist Avinash Giri has covered Rohingyas living in Delhi and Haryana, in North India.
He said: "The opinion about Rohingyas is divided among Indians because of the government's stand on the issue, which considers Rohingyas as a threat to national security. The right-wing ruling party in India is known for its Hindu nationalism. Supporters of the party see Rohingyas in the same light as the party does — as a threat to national security."
Punitive Measures
Acts of individual compassion such as those meted out by the Indonesian fishermen have not been without consequence for those seeking to help.
In Europe, Pia Klemp, the German captain of an NGO vessel, faces up to 20 years in an Italian prison for helping to save over 1,000 refugees from the water of the Mediterranean. The charges come amidst a crackdown by the far right Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini.
Such a crackdown brings the country's policy in direct confrontation with a longstanding international tradition of rescuing people who are in distress at sea, a conflict which is causing huge concern to the UNHCR.
Matthew Saltmarsh, a spokesman for the UNHCR, said rescue at sea was an obligation under international maritime law.
"To weaken the collective capacity to rescue people at sea, whoever the people being rescued are — including, but not only, refugees — is a very serious violation of a fundamental right enshrined in law," he explained.
"To weaken the capacity of NGOs to do the same is also extremely serious."
National Solutions
Despite the actions of individual NGO captains and fishermen, the real power to solve, or at least ease, the plight of the world's refugees lies with nations themselves.
"There are a lot of players, but it's very important to emphasise that the biggest player still remains the nation state," said Dr Kaneti.
"So if a country such as Indonesia or Malaysia says that they don't acknowledge or they don't want to be signatories of the conventions on refugees, there is no force in the world to make them sign the convention, accept refugees or even to allow institutions such as the UNHCR to function in the country."
Saltmarsh said the international community as well as nation states needed to take more responsibility in stopping the refugee crisis at its source, namely by helping to create conditions where people no longer needed to leave their home countries in the first place.
"The international community — including regional and national actors — are proving to be very poor at making peace. There are new conflicts and situations producing refugees, on top of existing ones. But the existing ones are not being resolved," he said.
The Future
However, he added that there was room for optimism, pointing to the agreement made at the UN General Assembly last December, with a $6.5 billion fund set up to tackle the problem.
He said that among the areas of focus are education, employment and allowing refugees greater independence and control of their own futures. It also has a central focus on host communities, their own economies and needs, and their relationship to the environment.
Kaneti too said she is still optimistic, placing her faith in people to do what they feel is right, regardless of what views or policies a leader or political movement may espouse.
"I remain hopeful in people's capacity to change their circumstances," she said. "There are frameworks and understandings of ethics and morality that are not the international law, that still exist in a lot of communities."
(Photo:Russell Watkins/Department for International Development)
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