10 May Syrian refugee numbers are dropping down
Syrian refugee numbers are dropping down
Recording to the UNHCR (UN refugee agency) the Syrian refugee numbers are dropping down. In 2014 was the highest number of refugees, it was recorded higher than one million one hundred refugee, in 2016 dropped down to one million and in 2018 was less than one million. The UN refugee agency published the numbers of the Syrian refugees from the beginning of the war until now.
Elias Afesa who is a medical student in Lattakia explained that the numbers were dropping down for two main reasons. Firstly, the war seems nearly in the end. Secondly, people who wanted to leave Syria already left. “People who wanted to travel are already gone and me as Syrian citizen who still lives in Syria I can see that the war is coming to an end, for these two reasons the refugees numbers are dropping”, Elias Afesa.
“We didn’t travel out of Syria until we were sure that the situation will last long, it wasn’t easy to leave our country but we had no other choice”, Elias Atalla Syrian refugee in Sweden.
In addition, Elias Atalla explained that in the beginning of the war a lot of people preferred to stay in Syria because it was unclear if the war will last for years or it would be solved in couple of days or months. In the reports of the UNHCR we can see that in the beginning of the war in 2011, the numbers of refugees were not too high. Unfortunately, in 2012 the situation was clear for the Syrian citizens. They knew that the war will last for long time, therefor they decided to travel and the refugee numbers were so high.
However, according to the journalist Ferran Morales who did a whole story about a fictional girl’s trip called Zeinab. He explained how difficult the trip out of Syria was. They started the journey from Turkey, and then travelling to Greece by small boats and from Greece they were travelling to Europe. The journey was not easy, but people decided to take a risk and travel in an illegal way instead of being killed in Syria.
Finally, Ferran Morales also talked about how hard it was for the Syrian citizens to travel to Europe, how many families are lost and killed in this journey. Even when they travel they will start a new life in a new country, it’s not easy to throw everything behind you and take a step forward to a new world, new culture and new language.
Sources: UNHCR website
https://www.unhcr.org/uk/data.html
The XL document:
