The 2nd Migrant Wave to Germany | 265 comments (265 topical, editorial, 2 hidden)

Re: The 2nd Migrant Wave to Germany (none / 1)

KSA takes zero refugees despite having 100,000 tents able to house 3 million people

While European countries are being lectured about their failure to take in enough refugees, Saudi Arabia - which has taken in precisely zero migrants - has 100,000 air conditioned tents that can house over 3 million people sitting empty.
The sprawling network of high quality tents are located in the city of Mina, spreading across a 20 square km valley, and are only used for 5 days of the year by Hajj pilgrims. As the website Amusing Planet reports, "For the rest of the year, Mina remains pretty much deserted."
The tents, which measure 8 meters by 8 meters, were permanently constructed by the Saudi government in the 1990's and were upgraded in 1997 to be fire proof. They are divided into camps which include kitchen and bathroom facilities.

Saudi Arabia says 2.5M Syrians have been sheltered, hundreds of thousands given residency (since the conflict began)

Saudi offers to build 200 mosques in Germany for Syrian refugees

by das monde on Mon Sep 14th, 2015 at 01:12:44 AM EST

Re: The 2nd Migrant Wave to Germany (none / 0)

Hey, Saudi Arabia: Here's what you can do to help the Syrian refugees

The Saudi, Qatari and Emirati governments know full well that the Muslim states that are taking in Syrians are already overwhelmed by the numbers. According to Amnesty International, Turkey alone has 1.6 million--and it, at least, is economically stable. The same can hardly be said for Lebanon (1.1 million refugees), Jordan (620,000), Iraq (225,000) or Egypt (140,000). And these are the refugees who have registered; it is hard to know how many others have crossed into these countries, but have not been counted.
The oil-rich Gulf Arab states might argue that they are giving all these countries financial aid, to help them cope with the refugee crisis. This is not enough. Money cannot paper over the tremendous social and political strains on the smaller countries: the refugee numbers are equal to a quarter of Lebanon's population, for instance. Nor can cash make up for the huge drain on natural resources. Jordan's water supply, which has always been meager, cannot cope with so many more parched mouths.

by das monde on Mon Sep 14th, 2015 at 01:13:08 AM EST
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The 2nd Migrant Wave to Germany | 265 comments (265 topical, 0 editorial, 2 hidden)