Iran war could cause millions to flee, but who will take them?

(Tasha Kheiriddin – GZero) As missiles rain down on the Middle East, concerns about a humanitarian emergency are beginning to mount. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been displaced by fighting in Iran and Lebanon, setting in motion what could become yet another major refugee crisis in the region. The European Union’s asylum agency warned that a displacement of just 10% of Iran’s 91 million people “would rival the largest refugee flows of recent decades.”. Those earlier crises – namely those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria – sent millions of people seeking shelter in neighboring countries in the Middle East and in Europe. But the world is a very different place than in 2015, when the last exodus to Europe reached its peak. Governments that initially embraced refugees, including Germany and Sweden, have sharply reversed course in the decade since, adopting far more restrictive policies amid rising anti-immigration sentiment at home. “We cannot have what we had 10 years ago. We cannot have another refugee crisis,” Sweden’s Migration Minister Johan Forssell said after a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels last week. Instead of opening their doors, he said, European countries are preparing to provide humanitarian assistance in the Middle East – echoing a new European Union pledge to send food, medical kits, and other aid to Lebanon. – Iran war could cause millions to flee, but who will take them? – GZERO Media