TERMING the recently turned awful migration crisis “Worst since World War-II”, the UN Human Rights Council has asked the World leaders to come up with humanitarian assistance and political initiatives to stop persecution of people from where they are forced to leave their countries to become international refugees. The UN body sees the multitude crisis as symptoms of a long line of brutal conflicts and rights violations. If the UN avowal considered as universally applicable statement, it will be really thought provoking as to why Bangladeshi nationals are desperate to crisscross the borders putting their lives endangered. While the country perusing to catch 7 percent GDP growth depending on a mammoth budget of around Tk 3 trillion and setting ‘development’ the first priority, why people are desperate to leave the country. The UN should reveal the root cause of migration from the country and the government must speak up to clarify its stance.
The UN rights body stated that political turbulence, repression, violence and war have become so widespread in some Asian countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, in addition to some African countries like Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Somalia are forcing their nationals to become unwilling victims. Their desperation in the sea shows their persecution in the land. Millions of people from the war-torn countries or countries suffering under political repression, where the Western powers are directly or indirectly involved to making the situation volatile, have now impel many millions to risk their lives to find a relatively safe place.
From the Andaman Sea to the Mediterranean, people are losing their lives as they desperately seek a safe haven. Other global rights’ bodies also said the current refugee crisis would not end unless the international community recognizes it a global problem that requires the big powers to significantly step up international cooperation and look for political solution. People believe that the Western politics and regional powers have made life miserable in these countries and they would require in the first place to abandon their dirty politics in these war-torn and politically volatile nations.
More than 100 thousand people have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, of which some 1,800 drowned. Southeast Asia’s migrant crisis came to the light in May this year, in which closer to one lakh jobless poor from Bangladesh and Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority were found trapped at sea and in Thai jungles. Several thousands perished in jungle camps and at sea. Except raising voice, the world leaders did nothing to stop the crisis at source in Myanmar and Bangladesh. The situation is particularly ‘desperate’ in Syria where more than two lakhs were already dead in civil war and four million Syrian refugees are living in refugee camps in countries bordering Syria. Libya is bleeding in civil war and Egypt is on the verge of a bloody conflict to which the Western powers have their direct and indirect involvement.
The warning from the UN Human Rights Council has come at the peak of the crisis and similar concerns were also voiced from other global rights groups.
The humility of job-seeking migrants is a matter neither the country of origin nor the rich countries, where they desperately try to go in search of jobs for livelihood and not for luxury, can be handled alone. It is a mater of concern on both sides. But only the rich countries have the resources and the power to create a world together with poor countries where job opportunities can be planned and created so that the jobless persons are not left out to die at sea or be killed at the hands of brutal human traffickers. No government should be allowed to engage easily in human trade and take advantage of human miseries. Each country has to take joblessness seriously and not to make trafficking a profitable business.
