Compassion led to hard EU line on migration

A decade ago, the image of a three-year-old Syrian boy washed up dead on a Turkish beach prompted an outpouring of emotion and renewed commitments from European governments to take in refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war.

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Alan Kurdi drowned alongside his mother and brother when a rubber dinghy headed for Greece sank off the coast of Turkey in September 2015, reported Reuters. A decade later, thousands of people escaping hardship, conflict and climate disasters still risk their lives ‘on similarly perilous boat journeys to Europe.

But the reception they might get has changed. Ten years ago, the European Union (EU) vowed as one to prevent further loss of life at sea. Now, keeping migrants out is the key goal, as governments play to right-leaning voters. Rights groups and policy experts say the future for these people is becoming even more precarious as the EU looks set to further harden its restrictions on migration, Reuters informed.

“All of this started in 2015, and measures are getting even stricter,” said Josephine Liebl, head of advocacy at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), an alliance of non-governmental organisations.