MSF slams EU for failing to help refugees

The medical charity group Doctors Without Borders has harshly criticized the European Union’s response to the flow of refugees to Europe, saying the 28-nation bloc catastrophically failed to help the asylum seekers.

The charity group, known by its French acronym MSF (Medecins Sans Frontières), issued the rebuke in a report released on Tuesday, which also called for the establishment of safe transit corridors for the refugees.

MSF operations director Brice de le Vingne said in a statement that EU’s defensive and disorganized efforts to respond to the worst refugee crisis since World War II only deteriorated the situation.

“Their focus on policies of deterrence along with their chaotic response to the humanitarian needs of those who flee, actively worsened the conditions of thousands of vulnerable men, women and children,” the statement said.

The MSF report blamed deterrent and anti-immigration policies, tightened in 2015, for human smuggling, and added that they "pushed people towards ever more dangerous routes."

Europe is facing an unprecedented influx of refugees who are fleeing conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria. Damascus blames foreign support for militants wreaking havoc in the country for the refugee crisis. 

Officials in European countries are struggling to forge a united response to the record number of asylum seekers.

According to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than one million refugees reached Europe’s shores in 2015. Over 3,700 people reportedly either died or went missing in their perilous journey to the continent.

The MSF further said that it is for the first time that the charity decided “to mobilize three search and rescue ships at sea to save lives."

Earlier this month, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker censured the EU states for failing to act on plans to resolve the refugee crisis.

Refugee children in danger

Also on Tuesday, the United Nations and aid agencies warned that thousands of refugee children travelling in Turkey and southeastern Europe are at risk of death over freezing weather in the next two weeks.

According to the UN weather agency forecast, temperatures could drop below normal and heavy snowfall is expected in the next two weeks in the eastern Balkan Peninsula, Turkey, the eastern Mediterranean and Syria, Lebanon, occupied Palestinian territories and Jordan.

Christophe Boulierac, spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF, said many kids on the move lack adequate clothing or do not have access to the right nutrition.

He also said that the risk of children freezing to death is “is clearly very, very high.”

Children are said to have made up a quarter of the one million refugees arriving across the Mediterranean in Europe last year. 

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