2021 Wave of Afghan Refugees Expected to be Much Greater than 2015

August 20, 2021 in News by RBN Staff

source: needtoknownews

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Humanitarian workers are warning that up to 3-million Afghan refugees could try to find their way to Europe following the Taliban’s takeover of their country. Most of the refugees are actually economic migrants who prefer Germany and the UK over Saudi Arabia, the closest safe haven. The migrants could eclipse the 2015 migrant crisis that brought over a million asylum seekers to Europe from countries in the Middle East and North Africa. -GEG

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that the 2021 Afghan refugee crisis could make the 2015 refugee crisis look like a “geopolitical walk in the park” in comparison.

Humanitarian workers are warning of up to 3 million Afghan refugees could try to find their way to Europe following the Taliban’s takeover of the country.

CSIS Senior Fellow Erol Yayboke echoes those figures, projecting that the number of displaced Afghans, which currently stands at around 2.6 million worldwide, could easily double over the next two years alone.

“Unless the U.S. and its partners sufficiently respond to this next big refugee crisis, millions of displaced Afghans in 2021 could make the 2015 migration crisis seem like a geopolitical walk in the park,” states the report.

Noting that the 2015 migrant crisis saw over a million asylum seekers reach Europe from numerous different countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Yayboke warns that the number of Afghans alone heading west this time around “could eclipse even these peak figures.”

Where the “refugees,” most of whom are actually economic migrants, will end up, remains the larger question given that there is no appetite to accept them either in Europe or in neighboring Middle Eastern countries.

According to one diplomat in Kabul, despite European countries fortifying their borders since 2015, “not even tanks” can stop the coming influx if the numbers are large enough.

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