The Germans really have to be given a lot of credit for trying to help these refugees. I wonder how much the oil-rich Gulf States are contributing to help out these refugees.
Straining to Make Room for Refugees as the War in Syria Floods the World
By ALISON SMALENOV. 30, 2014
For Mr. Mahayni, the long wait has been wrenching. Tears well up as he recalls his wife and children — two daughters, 9 and 6, and a son, 4 — whom he has not seen since August, when he left them in Jordan, where the family had spent three years in exile from Syria’s war.
The government has also reduced to three months from nine the waiting time before refugees can seek work. There are almost 160,000 applications for asylum pending now, according to the federal migration office; experts expect the total this year to top 200,000. Although Berlin is not providing airstrikes against jihadists in Syria and Iraq, it is playing an increasing role in this refugee crisis. About 340 million euros have flowed this year to the crisis region itself for refugee care, German officials say; much more will be spent at home.
Each of Germany’s 16 states gets an agreed-upon share of refugees and must determine how best to process them through reception centers and then offer more permanent lodging. Western states are more populous and take in more refugees than those in the former East Germany — much as in Europe as a whole, where calls are mounting for more of the burden to be shared across the 28 members of the European Union.
Dincer Seher, 48, came to Germany from Turkey when she was 3, the child of one of the hundreds of thousands of Turkish guest workers recruited in the 1960s and 1970s and long treated merely as temporary residents. As the manager of a refugee facility, a former youth hostel on Hamburg’s outskirts, she helps new arrivals follow her path, which she described as integration, not full assimilation. She said the newly arrived are often traumatized by separation from homeland and family and by a journey involving perilous land and sea crossings and people smugglers. Once at her facility, they begin to acclimate.
On a recent day, local Germans came by with gifts of old clothes, toys and furniture; children from different lands played harmoniously; and parents from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and West Africa voiced broad satisfaction with their accommodations — in single rooms per family, with shared bathrooms and cooking facilities — and their prospects.
Like Mr. Mahayni, they emphasized the need to learn German. Mohammad Salaho, 23, a trained chef who showed what he said were scars from jail and torture in his native Syria, said he wanted to be able to tell people here what he had endured. Siyamend Hassan, who studied engineering in Syria, wants to learn the language to make a new life.
Continue reading at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/straining-to-make-room-for-refugees-as-t
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/straining-to-make-room-for-refugees-as-t
Straining to Make Room for Refugees as the War in Syria Floods the World
By ALISON SMALENOV. 30, 2014
For Mr. Mahayni, the long wait has been wrenching. Tears well up as he recalls his wife and children — two daughters, 9 and 6, and a son, 4 — whom he has not seen since August, when he left them in Jordan, where the family had spent three years in exile from Syria’s war.
The government has also reduced to three months from nine the waiting time before refugees can seek work. There are almost 160,000 applications for asylum pending now, according to the federal migration office; experts expect the total this year to top 200,000. Although Berlin is not providing airstrikes against jihadists in Syria and Iraq, it is playing an increasing role in this refugee crisis. About 340 million euros have flowed this year to the crisis region itself for refugee care, German officials say; much more will be spent at home.
Each of Germany’s 16 states gets an agreed-upon share of refugees and must determine how best to process them through reception centers and then offer more permanent lodging. Western states are more populous and take in more refugees than those in the former East Germany — much as in Europe as a whole, where calls are mounting for more of the burden to be shared across the 28 members of the European Union.
Dincer Seher, 48, came to Germany from Turkey when she was 3, the child of one of the hundreds of thousands of Turkish guest workers recruited in the 1960s and 1970s and long treated merely as temporary residents. As the manager of a refugee facility, a former youth hostel on Hamburg’s outskirts, she helps new arrivals follow her path, which she described as integration, not full assimilation. She said the newly arrived are often traumatized by separation from homeland and family and by a journey involving perilous land and sea crossings and people smugglers. Once at her facility, they begin to acclimate.
On a recent day, local Germans came by with gifts of old clothes, toys and furniture; children from different lands played harmoniously; and parents from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and West Africa voiced broad satisfaction with their accommodations — in single rooms per family, with shared bathrooms and cooking facilities — and their prospects.
Like Mr. Mahayni, they emphasized the need to learn German. Mohammad Salaho, 23, a trained chef who showed what he said were scars from jail and torture in his native Syria, said he wanted to be able to tell people here what he had endured. Siyamend Hassan, who studied engineering in Syria, wants to learn the language to make a new life.
Continue reading at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/straining-to-make-room-for-refugees-as-t
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/world/straining-to-make-room-for-refugees-as-t
