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NATO wars root cause of refugee crisis: Activist

Friday, 28 October 2016 3:06 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 28 October 2016 3:09 PM ]

Young refugees wait to board a bus leaving for a reception center, in Calais, France, on October 28, 2016, following a massive operation to clear a refugee camp there. (Photo by AFP)

The root cause of the refugee crisis is the wars being waged by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in different countries around the world, says a human rights activist.

“I see the problem farther back. I see the refugee problem as part of NATO’s attempts to undermine Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and also Western Europe, and if there were no wars of aggression against Syria, Yemen, etc. there would not be so many refugees,” Declan Hayes told Press TV in an interview on Friday.

He also noted that the various charity groups complaining about the refugees' situation are trying to stir up people’s emotions instead of addressing the root cause of the problem, which is the wars launched by NATO.

“When we look at who is making the noise at the moment, we see various charity groups like Comic Relief and the ones that are associated with [former British Prime Minister] Tony Blair and [US Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton. I do not think Clinton and Blair have the interest of children at heart,” he said.

“What they are doing is they are pulling on our emotions instead of addressing the root cause, which is the wars that NATO and its proxies are waging in a huge number of countries and the overall plan for economic dominance and the refugees are the very unfortunate side issue of that,” he added.

The activist further said that the media is using the "unfortunate people" in the French Calais refugee camp for their own interest.

“That is the basic plan. Of course children should be in their own homes, but the overall plan is to destroy their homes and maybe to give them, most of them, very low class jobs or livings in Europe,” he stated.

The camp is a symbol of Europe's failed refugee policies as member states bicker over who should take in asylum-seekers.

On Tuesday, French authorities started tearing down the tents at the camp, where up to 8,000 refugees, including 1,200 children, mainly from Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea, were living in dire conditions.

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