Lacking humanity
How not to help refugees fleeing a war on civilians:
France has accused Britain of “lacking humanity” in helping fleeing Ukrainians join their families in the UK via the French port city of Calais.
French interior minister Gerald Darmanin, in a strongly-worded letter to his British counterpart Priti Patel, urged London to set up a proper consular presence in Calais to issue visas after 150 Ukrainians were turned away and asked to obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.
Paris and Brussels are not across the street or around the corner, they are a hefty train journey away. These are refugees, not tourists.
The French minister, in his letter, said the UK’s response was “completely unsuitable” and showed a “lack of humanity” towards refugees “in distress”, reported news agency AFP.
“It is imperative that your consular representation, exceptionally and for the duration of this crisis, is able to issue visas for family reunification on the spot in Calais,” Mr Darmanin added.
And if they say they can’t, it’s too hard and too expensive and they don’t want to, they should pause to think of Poland.
The number of refugees fleeing Ukraine is expected to reach 1.5 million as Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine entered the eleventh day on Sunday. The UN has warned that the war could displace nearly five million people.
Most refugees were seen moving to the west towards Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Hungary. Poland, which has opened its doors to the lion’s share of Ukrainian refugees, has reportedly absorbed over 650,000 people.
Do the right thing.
I am utterly ashamed of my country.
Tim:
Me too, we are doing an abysmal job. While claiming to be at the forefront of aiding Ukraine. Our government learned the one lesson Trump had to teach: lie. Just lie. Don’t apologise when you’re caught. Because it won’t matter providing your short, medium and long term goals are all entirely self-serving.
Same here (despite the fact that my country pretty conistenly ends up near the top* of almost any list attempting to rank countries by their standard of living, health, life expecancy, income, equality, reported life satisfaction etc.). More than anything, though, I’m ashamed of my species. If I had to guess, I’d say the human species will pay the ultimate price for its own stupidity and evil (at least the people in Don’t Look Up didn’t cause that asteroid to be on collision course with Earth in the first place…). It seems like less of a bad thing every second…
* Obviously one bad thing doesn’t become good just because other things are worse (c.f. “Dear Muslima”) just like -100 doesn’t become >0 just because its >-1,000,000.