http://time.com/4065980/plotting-the-escape/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Fworld+%28TIME%3A+Top+World+Stories%29
How the Arab Spring and Civil Wars Led to Europe’s Refugee Crisis
Naina Bajekal _at_naina_bajekal
6:39 AM ET
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Migrants have been plotting their escape
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December 2010
Revolution
Protests in Tunisia mark the beginning of the Arab Spring uprisings
that see leaders ousted from power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
The demonstrations largely subside by mid-2012 but evolve into still
ongoing civil wars in Syria and Libya.
May 2011
Two months after large-scale protests erupt in the Syrian capital of
Damascus and elsewhere, the Syrian government intensifies its violent
crackdown on demonstrators, causing the first surge of new refugees to
neighboring Lebanon.
June 2011
Unintended consequences
The siege of Jisr al-Shughour in northwest Syria sparks a flight to
Turkey. By mid-June, more than 10,000 Syrian refugees are living in
camps in Turkey and some 8,500 in Lebanon.
July 2011
Jordan also begins to see a rise in Syrian refugees, most from Dara’a,
the southern border town that sparked the initial uprising against
Syrian President Bashar Assad.
October 2011
Chaos in Libya
Militias find and kill Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi after a
NATO-led coalition helps rebels topple his regime. For years, Italy
and the E.U. paid Gaddafi to enforce Europe’s sea borders; his regime
would intercept migrants on boats and often imprison them in detention
centers where violence, rape and torture were common. The overthrow of
Gaddafi and ensuing power vacuum soon opens up the sea route to
Europe.
December 2011
The U.N. reports that more than 5,000 Syrians have been killed since
the uprising began. By the end of 2011, Turkey has spent up to $15
million to set up six refugee camps.
April 2012
Flight to Kurdistan
Increasing numbers of Syrian refugees of Kurdish origin begin to
arrive in the quasi-independent Kurdistan region in northern Iraq,
leading to the opening of Domiz refugee camp near Duhok. It remains
the largest Syrian refugee camp in Iraq.
July 2012
Fighting intensifies in Aleppo, just 30 miles from the Turkish border,
causing an additional 200,000 people to flee. After 6,500 migrants
cross into Greece that month, Athens constructs barbed-wire fences and
boosts border security.
December 2012
The U.N. refugee agency and its partners ask international donors for
$1 billion to support the regional refugee response. Earlier in the
year, hundreds of refugees had protested living conditions in Jordan’s
Zaatari camp.
March 2013
War worsens
A chemical-weapons attack in the Syrian city of Aleppo results in at
least 26 deaths.
1 MILLION
Number of Syrian refugees
September 2013
Germany agrees to resettle 5,000 Syrian refugees, who will be allowed
to stay for at least two years. At the time, it is the biggest
relocation program for the Syrian crisis. Sweden also offers permanent
residency to some 12,000 Syrian asylum seekers who had been granted
temporary permits.
October 2013
A boat carrying Eritrean, Somali and Ghanaian migrants from Libya to
Italy sinks off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Oct. 3. More than
360 people die. A second shipwreck, on Oct. 11, kills 34 people.
June 2014
Rise of ISIS
ISIS takes control of the Iraqi city of Mosul and declares its
self-styled caliphate. Hundreds of thousands flee Mosul for the
countryside–by late June the U.N. estimates that 1.2 million Iraqis
have left their homes.
July 2014
E.U. Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström says Europe must
offer safe and legal routes to asylum seekers, to prevent so many
risking their lives to reach Europe by boat.
September 2014
President Barack Obama authorizes air strikes against ISIS inside
Syria. In late September, as ISIS fighters begin attacking Kurdish
villages along the Syrian-Turkish border, more than 130,000 Syrian
Kurds flee.
October 2014
Battle of Kobani
The ISIS siege of Kobani, along the Syrian-Turkish border, sparks a
mass exodus. The Turkish city of Suruc sees its population double as
nearly 400,000 Syrian Kurds flee to Turkey.
November 2014
Italy ends Mare Nostrum, its search-and-rescue operation in the
southern Mediterranean. Aid agencies warn this could dramatically
increase the number of migrant deaths.
April 2015
More than 800 migrants die on April 19 when a boat sinks in the
Mediterranean 70 miles from the Libyan coast. The disaster marks the
largest single loss of life involving migrants and refugees in the
Mediterranean so far.
June 2015
Border control
Hungary announces plans on June 17 to build a 13-ft.-high fence along
the Hungarian-Serbian border–which causes migrants to rush to cross
before the 109-mile border is closed.
July 2015
Some 2,100 people storm the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and
France on July 28. The following day, about 1,500 more try to enter
the link, and a Sudanese man is crushed to death by a truck. Britain
pledges nearly $11 million to bolster security, while poor conditions
in the camps in Calais, France, known as the Jungle, gain
international attention.
August 2015
Against the backdrop of a major surge in migrant arrivals in Europe,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that her nation will offer
temporary asylum to Syrian refugees who manage to reach the country,
effectively suspending the E.U.’s Dublin regulation–and encouraging
more migrants to make the journey.
September 2015
On Sept. 2, photographs of a drowned 3-year-old boy, Syrian refugee
Alan Kurdi, appear online, sparking international outrage. On Sept.
25, E.U. ministers vote by a majority to relocate 120,000 refugees
across Europe, with Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania
voting against the plan.
October 2015
630,000 Number of illegal border crossings into Europe this year
Officials at the E.U. border agency Frontex say on Oct. 4 they have
recorded 630,000 illegal border crossings into Europe this year as of
the end of September, with a half-million people crossing the
Mediterranean. Though the E.U. approved a plan to tighten border
controls, experts believe the numbers will keep rising.
REPORTING BY NAINA BAJEKAL SOURCES: UNHCR; FRONTEX
This appears in the October 19, 2015 issue of TIME.
Received on Thu Oct 08 2015 - 23:11:33 EDT