The Global Refugee Crisis, Part 1: A True Account of a Syrian Refugee’s Journey to Safety (Free Teleconference)

A non-CLE program proudly presented by the ABA Section of International Law

Sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of International Law, International Human Rights Committee 

Co-Sponsored by the Section of International Law Middle East Committee, International Refugee Law Committee, and UN & Int'l Organizations Committee 

Friday, December 4, 2015 

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. EST 

★ Teleconference Only Event  ★

AUDIO RECORDING OF PART 1

The situation is Syria has reached critical mass. An estimated 240,000 Syrian, including 12,000 children, have been killed since the outbreak of civil war in March 2011. Over 1 million have been wounded or permanently disabled. Approximately 12 million Syrians have fled their homes, taking refuge in neighboring countries or within Syria itself. 

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 4 million have fled to Syria's immediate neighbors Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Another 6.5 million are internally displaced within Syria. More than 400,000 Syrians have risked their lives this year to travel to Europe, but under 150,000 Syrians have declared asylum in the European Union. Germany has pledged 35,000 places (75% of total EU) for Syrian refugees through its humanitarian programme. 

Excluding Germany and Sweden, which received 47% of the EU asylum application, the remaining 26 EU countries have pledged around 8,700 (approx 0.2%) resettlement places for Syrian refugees. Gulf countries (i.e, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain) and high income countries (i.e., Russia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea) have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees. 

UNPRECEDENTED - The Global Refugee Crisis, Part 1: A True Account of a Syrian Refugee’s Journey to Safety is the first teleconference in a 2-part series aimed at addressing the unprecedented refugee crisis in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Part 1 provides an intimate look at the unfolding tragedy, as told by two Syrian-born men. 

Joseph F. Jacob (“Joseph 1”) is a Syrian-born American lawyer in New York. He will begin the discussion with a brief historical account of the events that led up to the current war and unprecedented refugee crisis. This will be followed a more personal account of how Mr. Jacob’s helped his eight member family escaped war-torn Syria and what steps he took to secure their safe arrival in America. 

Joseph Khoury (“Joseph 2”) is a 50 year old Syrian who lived with his family, his wife, a college age boy and a middle school age girl in Aleppo, Syria until 2014. He will detail his harrowing escape from Syria and arrival to Greece, where he was detained for several weeks before being allowed to complete his journey and reunite with his family in Germany. 

There will be a brief Q&A session after both gentlemen speak. Attendees may submit questions using one of the options below. 

• Email at inthumrights@gmail.com 
• Twitter via direct message (@ABAIHRC) 
• Twitter hashtag: #ABASyriansSpeak 

Please indicate if your question is for Joseph 1, Joseph 2, or both speakers.

Speakers: 

• Joseph Jacob, Section of International Law Middle East Committee Vice Chair 
• Joseph Khoury, Syrian refugee/ Invited Guest 

Moderator: 

• Stephanie Williams, Section of International Law Human Rights Committee Co-Chair

An Interactive Look at the Global Refugee Crisis, Region by Region

Kurdish women and children from Syria at a Turkish military checkpoint near Kobani, a Syrian town badly damaged by the war last year. Bryan Denton for The New York Times

The New York Times has published an interactive look at hot spots in what the United Nations says has become the worst migration crisis since World War II.

THE BALKANS - Tens of thousands of migrants and refugees are working their way north through the Balkans. Masses of migrants and refugees, many from Syria, Afghanistan and Kosovo, have been overwhelming border authorities in several Balkan countries as they try to reach Western Europe. The migrants travel in groups of just a few to dozens, moving north by bus, train, taxi or van. Serbian news media reported that some 70 buses of migrants entered the capital, Belgrade. Migrants in Macedonia told reporters that they were especially eager to move after Hungary said it planned to complete a fence along its 109-mile border with Serbia.

THE MIDDLE EAST - Syria’s neighbors have been making it harder for migrants to cross into their territories. Years of violence in Iraq and Syria have stretched the capacities of neighboring countries to accommodate the displaced. In Jordan, unemployment has almost doubled since 2011 in areas with high concentrations of refugees, according to a recent International Labor Organization study. Lebanon began to require visas from Syrians in January. Refugees now make up about 20 percent of Lebanon’s population. In March, Turkey announced it would close the two remaining border gates with Syria.

SOUTHEAST ASIA - Thousands of Bangladeshis and Rohingya, an ethnic minority from Myanmar, have fled from poverty and persecution. Indonesia and Malaysia, countries that in the past have quietly taken in many refugees from Bangladesh and Myanmar, first reacted to the new rise in migrants by vowing to send back smugglers’ boats. Facing public pressure, they reversed their stance in mid-May, saying they would provide shelter to migrants still at sea. An absence of landings and a paucity of sightings suggest that the flow has subsided.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA - The European Union wants to stop smugglers near the African coast. European governments are divided over the fates of those who reach shore. In May, European leaders said they would form a naval force based in Italy to combat people-smuggling. The European Commission also appealed to the bloc’s member states to accept quotas of migrants to relieve the burden on southern states, like Italy and Greece, which are the main landing points. Poverty and war in places like Libya, South Sudan, Eritrea and Nigeria are driving migrants to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea.

EASTERN EUROPE - Fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists has severely damaged Ukraine’s industrial belt. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have fled to Russia. But European Union countries, like Poland, Germany and Italy, which are among the top destinations for asylum seekers, have rejected most applications from Ukrainians. Less than a third of the $316 million needed in 2015 for the United Nations’ humanitarian response has been raised so far. The conflict was particularly damaging to Ukraine’s economy, which is expected to shrink 9 percent by the end of the year.

Excerpts, read full article here.

Sources: Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, International Organization for Migration

Additional work by Sarah Almukhtar, Wilson Andrews, Joe Burgess, K.K. Rebecca Lai, David Furst, Alison Smale and Derek Watkins.

Nepal Earthquake 2015: How You Can Help

Nepal on Sunday was left reeling in shock a day after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake caused widespread destruction across the Himalayan nation and claimed over 3,617 thus far. More than 6,500 people have been injured, according to the National Emergency Operation Centre. Several climbers were killed when the earthquake caused a massive avalanche around Mount Everest. More than 200 climbers have been rescued. 

The earthquake reduced whole neighborhoods to rubble and sent deadly tremors throughout the region, including in Pakistan, India, Tibet and Bangladesh. Rescuers were unable to reach remote Nepali villages near the quake's epicenter, and aid agencies warned the full extent of death and destruction was just beginning to emerge. As strong aftershocks shook Nepal for a second day, the country's hospitals were overflowing with the dead and wounded. Search teams continued to scour the wreckage for survivors, and hundreds of victims were laid to rest in traditional cremation ceremonies. Grieving relatives flooded the famed Hindu Pashupatinath Temple on the outskirts of the capital Kathmandu to take part in mass funerals.

Such a powerful quake would result in destruction anywhere, but in a nation as poverty-stricken as Nepal, its citizens are particularly vulnerable. Aid groups worldwide have mobilized to help. Click here to look at humanitarian efforts underway and links that allow you to donate online.

Obama Authorizes Humanitarian Drops and Limited Airstrikes in Iraq

[Click image to be redirected to a video of Obama's speech.]

President Barack Obama said he authorized airstrikes against militants in Iraq if they threaten U.S. personnel, and he dispatched planes to drop food and water for trapped civilians threatened with “genocide.”

U.S. aircraft dropped supplies today to Iraqis threatened by fighters from the Islamic State extremist group near Sinjar, close to the border of Syria. All the planes safely left the airspace.

The airlift was precipitated by the plight of about 50,000 people, half of them children, who have been stranded in mountainous territory after advances by the militant Islamic State. The people are Yezidis, an ethno-religious minority. The militants have also targeted Christians, Obama said.

The extremists “have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yezidis people, which would constitute a genocide,” Obama said tonight in televised remarks from the White House. “The United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.”

Obama, who campaigned for office on a vow to end the Iraq war, and oversaw the full withdrawal of forces from Iraq in 2011, said the U.S. has no intention of putting forces on the ground. He said he authorized airstrikes against Islamic State militants if they move toward the Kurdish city of Erbil, where the U.S. has diplomatic personnel.

Excerpt, read more here.

Over 260 Dead in Gaza As Israel Expands to Ground Operations

A ball of fire is seen following an early morning Israeli air strike, July 11, 2014, on Rafah in the southern of Gaza strip. (Photo credit: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)


Israeli tanks rolled into the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday night and naval gunboats pounded targets in the south as Israel began a ground invasion after 10 days of aerial bombardment failed to stop Palestinian militants from showering Israeli cities with rockets.

Israeli leaders said the incursion was a limited one focused on tunnels into its territory like the one used for a predawn attack Thursday that was thwarted. They said it was not intended to topple Hamas, the militant Islamist movement, from its longtime rule of Gaza.

As rockets continued to rain down on Israeli cities, a military spokesman said the mission’s expansion was “not time bound” and was aimed to ensure Hamas operatives were “pursued, paralyzed and threatened” as it targeted “terrorist infrastructure” in the north, south and east of Gaza “in parallel.”

As midnight approached Thursday, residents of some sparsely populated farmland in northern Gaza were cowering in their homes, afraid to answer mobile phones or peek out windows. Some sent text messages reporting that they could hear tank shelling, heavy artillery, and F-16s dropping bombs. Moussa al-Ghoul, 63, who lives northwest of Beit Lahiya, said his neighborhood had turned into “a war zone” with tanks surrounding his home, having destroyed those of two of his sons. He said shells were landing “everywhere.”

Gaza news outlets reported that electricity had been cut to 80 percent of the coastal territory after cables bringing power from Israel were damaged.

After the early-morning tunnel episode, the day settled into an extended calm as both sides observed a United Nations request for a five-hour humanitarian pause in the fighting. But by 3 p.m., the violence roared back as the Palestinian death toll neared 250 and more than 120 rockets rained on cities throughout southern and central Israel all afternoon and evening.


Israel began to call up 18,000 reservists, adding to 50,000 already mobilized in recent days; Colonel Lerner said the ground forces would include infantry and artillery units, armored and engineer corps, supported by Israel’s “vast intelligence capabilities,” air force and navy.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, called the invasion “a dangerous step.”

Excerpts, read article here.