Tag Archives: Syrian refugees

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Further to the news that 80 Syrian refugees will be accommodated in the former Abbeyfield Hotel in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon in March…

Eithne O’Brien, of RTÉ’s Prime Time, visited the town and spoke to several residents – including Mary Gallagher, who has run a clothes shop in Ballaghaderreen for more than 40 years.

While talking to Ms O’Brien, Ms Gallagher said:

“We must open our hearts and give them a chance and let them have shelter, we’d be a very poor lot of people if we didn’t do that.

..”We were brought up to think that if somebody was needy, I’m not talking about people who’ve just come to work, they’re all right, they’re okay, they’ve money coming in every week.

“But if somebody is needy and they’re driven out of their homes and you see a child picked up in Aleppo, out of the clay, how could you say no? How could you say no? You’d be betraying every single thing that we, ourselves, came from.”

Video: Colm Tobin

Watch back in full here

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A banner placed on the Ha’penny Bridge in Dublin in February, calling for safe routes for people seeking refugee protection

Lecturer in Geography at University College Cork Piaras Mac Éinrí writes:

I don’t want to go into too much detail so as not to identify any parties, but I heard some truly disturbing stories today about the Department of Justice and Law Reform’s handling of such issues as family reunification for Syrian refugees.

A case in point: the woman in Syria who wanted to join her family in Ireland and who was obliged to travel at extraordinary personal danger and expense in order to obtain an identity document for onward travel, only to be informed that it would not be acceptable.

Assurances were given by Frances Fitzgerald, inside and outside the Dáil, that Ireland would be generous about such matters.

The reality is that a paltry number of individuals and families (I think approximately 20 individuals) have been accepted from Lebanese refugee camps in the past several months, while the bigger relocation programme, announced with much fanfare and whereby 4,000 people were to be accepted from overcrowded ‘hot spots’ in Greece and Italy, appears to be completely blocked.

A particular feature of the Department’s current approach seems to be that, even when people are brought in through UNHCR-brokered programmes, it is all done in virtual secrecy.

I met one Syrian family in Mallow a few weeks ago, as I wrote on Facebook at the time, as they had accidentally met up with friends of mine here who had themselves lived in Aleppo.

There are eight Syrian families in Mallow now – there is no security issue, or need for confidentiality, or anything else. Yet it has taken weeks to put them in touch with people who can help them, speak their language, provide them with the most basic assistance.

What is this about, if it is not an obsessive concern with control and an excessive wish to block anyone from civil society from offering help and support?

I have no doubt where much of the fault lies.

In all the changes which have taken place in government (and governance) in this country in the past half-century, one department remains virtually untouched. The Department of Justice has ‘captured’ virtually every minister appointed to it over the decades (I was told today that, for all of his faults, the only exception was Alan Shatter – he initiated a one-off programme of his own for Syrians and the civil servants hated it).

Their securocratic obsessions and slavish subservience to British policy (in the name of protecting the Common Travel Area), as well as their stubborn refusal to engage with other stakeholders, shows that nothing has changed.

My own experience as a civil servant in the 1980s was of dealing with a close-minded, bigoted, sometimes racist and utterly intransigent mindset.

Contrast this with the change in other departments, who now engage actively with other stakeholders – Foreign Affairs and the development policy community are a case in point.

Remember the Hungarians who came in 1956.

They were treated so badly by official Ireland that the vast majority could not wait to move to Canada, a country which offered them a real welcome.

Ironically, the camp where they were (literally) detained, Knockalisheen in Co. Clare is, perhaps not surprisingly, now a Direct Provision Centre. A kind of ‘no-place’ for invisible people.

The Department hasn’t changed since then; as far as I am concerned they have blood on their hands.

But ordinary Ireland has and stands ready to accept refugees in some numbers and make them welcome.

The twin new dangers now are that an absence of government makes ongoing paralysis ever more likely and a possible Brexit will lead to new talk of border controls and craven assurances from our securocrats that even greater care will be taken to prevent ‘undesirables’ from entering this jurisdiction in case they might attempt to use it as a back door to the other place.

I know that the big picture must be addressed and the war must be stopped. This will require greater efforts from the international community than have been evident to date.

In the short term, with Russia pursuing its own agenda, the USA convulsed by the run-up to the presidential elections and an incumbent lame duck and the EU fragmented and divided in several ways, there is little to hope for.

Already there are signs of multiple breaches of the ceasefire supposedly in place.

But, in the meantime, we have a role to play in our own small way and Ireland is in flagrant dereliction of its duty.

Please write to your TDs, if nothing else.

If you have the time and the energy, join an NGO/activist group, tell your students or school pupils about the situation, contribute funds to people providing support.

Syrian refugees in Ireland now (Piaras Mac Éinrí, Facebook)

Thanks Mark Malone

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Sorcha Nic Mhathúna, of Oxfam, writes:

Best friends Grace and Nina from Cabra were moved to help after hearing about the challenges faced by the Syrian relatives of a family friend and after watching coverage of the crisis on the news.

They held a yard sale selling favourite toys and rice crispie buns and gave €32.41 to Oxfam Ireland’s Syria crisis appeal – and wrote a letter to accompany their donation:

Dear Oxfam,
I have done a yard-sale to raise funds for Syrian people who are refugees.
It is not nice for anyone to live in tents in cold. I just don’t agree with it.
From Grace (10) and Nina (9),
Cabra, Dublin 7.

Oxfam Ireland visited the girls at Grace’s home to thank them and to make a video, above, about the letter.

Mmf.

Oxfam Ireland

Previously: From One 11-Year-Old

Castlebar Lyons ClubMustapha Aboubi, pictured with his wife Patricia above, who owns the Olive Tree restaurant in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, is making an appeal to people to donate Winter clothes for Syrian refugees.

The Mayo News reports:

“A supporter of the humanitarian aid group, Human Appeal International, Mr Mustapha, a native of Algeria, plans to travel to a Turkish refugee camp in Hatay in early December with journalists and volunteers.
We hope to send a container full of warm clothes, blankets, gloves, scarves and hats before then. This is a humanitarian appeal for a population that is in crisis. These people were forced to leave all their possessions behind and flee. Can you imagine what that is like?” Mustapha Aboubi said yesterday.
Many of these families are facing their third winter dispossessed and in freezing conditions. The campaign ends on Monday next, September 30.”

 

Visit humanappeal.ie or call Mustapha on 094 90 38812.

Mayo asked to donate clothes to Syrian refugees (Áine Ryan, Mayo News)

Previously: How Many?

Pic: Castlebar.ie

Syriaaa

“Sweden on Tuesday became the first European Union country to announce it will give asylum to all Syrian refugees who apply.”

“All Syrian asylum seekers who apply for asylum in Sweden will get it,” Annie Hoernblad, the spokeswoman for Sweden’s migration agency, told AFP.”

“The agency made this decision now because it believes the violence in Syria will not end in the near future.”

“The decision, which will give refugees permanent resident status, is valid until further notice, added Hoernblad.

“Those granted permanent status will also be allowed to bring their families to Sweden.

…The move came as the United Nations said the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria had passed two million, which the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, called “the great tragedy of this century”.

 

Sweden grants blanket asylum to Syrian refugees (Yahoo! News)

 

Shatterr

“…it has emerged that an estimated 50 refugees fleeing Syria have been granted asylum in Ireland.”

“Justice Minister Alan Shatter said decisions still needed to be made regarding five other cases.”

“He also insisted Ireland hadn’t “turned away anyone who sought political asylum” since the violence began.”

 

Officer says Irish troops sufficiently trained for Syria mission (Irish Independent)

Pics: Aoife McDonnell (top) Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland (above)