Report: German officials expect up to 1.5 million asylum seekers to arrive in country this year - @BILD via @Reuters http://t.co/OzQIRDfrnI
— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) October 4, 2015
The Last Time Europe Committed Suicide by Refugee
The year was 375. The Roman Empire contained about a fourth of the world’s people stretching across Europe from Brittania in the north to Egypt in the south, from Spain in the west to what is now Bulgaria in the east.
Meanwhile, just east of Bulgaria, the Visigoths (Western Goths), fleeing the depredations of Hun horsemen, wanted to cross the Danube River into the safety of the Roman Empire. The Visigoths were also attracted by the glorious wealth of the Roman Empire.
The story of the refugee crisis is told in the final chapter of Edward Gibbon’s classic The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. About 500,000 Goths, men, women and children, lined the bank of the Danube River for miles, seeking to cross:
With outstretched arms and pathetic lamentations they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested that, if the gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws and to guard the limits of the republic.The Goths tried to force the mile-wide Danube, but failed and were driven back by Roman soldiers. Many Goths drowned. Perhaps a pathetic child’s body washed ashore. The callous brutality outraged Roman opinion. The Roman soldiers who had fought off the Goths were condemned. Gibbon writes:
[T]he brave officers who had served their country in their execution of their duty were punished by the loss of their employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads.Soon Eastern Roman Emperor Valens came to an agreement with the Visigoth ambassadors. The Goths agreed to leave their arms on the other shore and give the Romans many of their children as hostages. In return, Valens ferried the entire people across the Danube.
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Sounds familiar? That's because it is.
#BREAKING 630,000 migrants entered EU illegally so far this year, Frontex chief says
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) October 4, 2015
Libyan Red Crescent says bodies of 95 migrants washed ashore
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — A spokesman for Libya's Red Crescent says the bodies of at least 95 migrants have been found washed ashore over the past five days.
Mohamed al-Masrati says Red Crescent scouts found 85 of the corpses near Libya's capital Tripoli and 10 near Sabartha, a Libyan coastal city that is a main launching point for smugglers' boats headed to Europe. He says most of the deceased are migrants from other African countries and search efforts continue.
Thousands of migrants seeking a better life in Europe cast off from Libya on rickety boats, hoping to reach Italy. The International Organization for Migration says that more than 2,600 migrants have died in 2015 so far on the Central Mediterranean route that includes Libya.
Tip of the iceberg: No end in sight to migrant wave
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — One month after the body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach — and a week after the European Union agreed to secure its borders — the migrant crisis has largely fallen off the front pages and reporters are going home.
But the human tide keeps rolling northward and westward, and aid agencies are preparing for it to continue through the winter, when temperatures along the migrant trail will drop below freezing. They fear the crisis may get worse.
"One thing is clear, the movement is not going to die down," said Babar Baloch, the U.N. refugee agency's representative in the Balkans. "What we are seeing right now ... it's just the tip of the iceberg."
Germany's Jewish community head fears Muslim migrants' anti-Semitism
BERLIN – Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, expressed fear about increased anti-Semitism due to the attitudes of Muslim migrants entering the country.
“Many Syrians and Arab migrants grow up in an environment in which hostility to Jews and Israel is common practice,” he told Hesse radio on Wednesday.
Schuster called on Muslim organizations and communities to help integrate immigrants into German society. He urged leaders in mosques to communicate values that “we in Germany have as a basic prerequisite of mutual coexistence.”
Migrant crisis debris: Greek island battles lifejacket mountain
Mytilene (Greece) (AFP) - For the thousands of refugees and migrants landing on its beaches every day, Greece's Lesbos island is a step to safety and a brighter future in Europe.
But the continent's biggest migration challenge since World War II is now presenting an unexpected environmental headache: what to do with the vast heaps of lifejackets and inflatable boats left behind by the arrivals?
On the beach of Skala Sikaminias on Lesbos' northern coast, a key landing point for migrants, a group of municipal employees are loading discarded jackets and dinghies on a truck.
"We've barely finished when it's time to start all over again," sighs Yiorgos Katsanos, the deputy mayor in charge of waste management.
The city has mobilised 12 additional staff to handle the overload and sends two trucks and a crane to clear the beaches every day.
For the time being, the thousands of life vests and boats are deposited at a dump further north. Until a permanent decision on what to do with it emerges, they're being left there.
The municipal vehicles can only access areas served by roads, and there are plenty of inaccessible coves littered with debris.
Oktoberfest attendance falls amid German border controls
Berlin (AFP) - Attendance slipped at the world's biggest beer party, the annual Oktoberfest in Germany, as border controls imposed to stem the flow of refugees complicated rail travel, organisers said Sunday.
Turkey, EU agree to migrant action plan
Berlin (AFP) - The European Union and Turkey have agreed in principle to a plan of action to help ease the flow of migrants into the bloc, a German newspaper reported Sunday. [...]
Under the plan, Turkey would agree to stepped-up efforts to secure its frontier with the EU by taking part in joint patrols with the Greek coastguard in the eastern Aegean coordinated by EU border protection agency Frontex, the report said.
Any migrants picked up would be taken back to Turkey, where six new camps for up to two million people would be built, co-financed by the EU.
EU states meanwhile would agree to take in up to 500,000 people to ensure their safe passage across the sea without the involvement of people smugglers. [...]
