Latheef farook - Editor Ceylon Muslim
“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying. On land, People fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders.” Says UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
Millions of Muslims all over Middle East and beyond who lived in peace have been turned into refugees overnight during the past three decades. Today they, around 75 percent of the more than 60 million refugees, languish in miserable camps in abject poverty not knowing what is in store for them and their families.
Their misery was caused by Israeli sponsored wars waged by the United States. Britain, France, Russia and their agents, Arab dictators, in the Middle East installed in power by their US -European masters.
Around a century ago the problem of refugee was unheard of in the Middle East and other Muslim countries. The entire Middle East was under Ottoman Empire then and the people lived in peace. Mass killing, uprooting and dispersing families were unheard of.
Refugee issue cropped up for the first time in the Middle East in the early part of last century when, in the aftermath of World War 1, Palestine was brought under British Mandatory Rule. Britain aided and abetted Zionist Jewish terror gangs in their campaign to kill Palestinians to grab their lands to establish the Jewish state of Israel.
With Zionist Jews committing massacre after massacre helpless and unarmed Palestinians fled their lands and homes in search of safety. These killings culminated when in 1948 Jewish state of Israel was created in Palestinian lands.
Thus began the first wave of Palestinian refugees. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled for life and ended up in refugee camps in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and even Egypt. They continue to suffer in refugee camps to date.
The second wave of refugees were created after the June 1967 Israeli aggression against Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. While Palestinian refugees continued to suffer, so called champions of human rights, freedom, and democracy in US, Britain and Europe turned blind eyes to Israeli crimes and Palestinian sufferings.
In the aftermath of the collapse of former Soviet Union in December 1979 freedom loving people worldwide were happy that with US emerging as the most powerful super power democracy will flourish and wars, killings, uprooting families and such other calamities would end.
However these high hopes of humanity was dashed as the Zionist Jews and their Jewish supporters who were the real rulers of America, Britain, France and Russia had their own plan to destroy Middle East.
They got their mercenaries who rule US, UK, Europe and the Middle East to manipulate wars and destroy these countries, loot their wealth, slaughter innocent Muslims and turn Middle East into a killing field. In the process ensure the military supremacy of Israel in the region.
In the subsequent years US-European-Russian Israeli wars turned millions of Palestinians, Afghans, Bosnians, Chechens, Iraqis, Somalia’s, Syrians, Libyans and Muslims from many other countries into refugees. Countries like Iraq, Libya and Syria were almost developed ones where the people enjoyed very high standard of living with the best of modern comforts
The war mongers used the most sophisticated and destructive aircrafts and weapons to destroy modern infrastructure and kill so far more than four million innocent Afghan, Iraqi, Bosnian, Chechen, Iraqi, Libyan, Somali and Pakistani Muslims.
With infrastructure destroyed and their countries turned into killing fields people started fleeing with their families and often empty hands. They turned towards Europe which was killing them.
Some went to neighboring countries. For example Afghans went to Pakistan and some to Iran, Iraqis went to Syria and Syrians to Turkey .Disgusting state of affairs in the Muslim Middle East is that not many turned towards Arab countries as they know the reception awaiting them.
In Europe and elsewhere these refugees suffer untold misery.
Among the wealthy Gulf countries only United Arab Emirates absorbed around 250,000 Syrian refugees. For rest of the Gulf sheikhs including Saudis the human kindness towards their suffering Muslim dried.
Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, has called those wealthy countries' inaction in the Syrian crisis "shameful."
Instead of helping these unfortunate Muslims, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf autocratic dictators became active collaborators in implementing their US masters’ agenda on the Arabs. They were hand in glove with war mongers in turning Syria and Yemen into killing fields. Saudi together with UAE and other Gulf regimes killed more than 14,000 innocent Yemenis. This slaughter still continues.
Meanwhile thousands of Libyans and Syrians fled to Europe often on overcrowded boats, some of them overturned sinking the entire passengers in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds of Libyan refugees drowned last Thursday when their boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea.
Those who were lucky enough to reach the shores across were subjected to severe harassment and humiliation due to winter, lack of food and other problems.
According to report by Julia A. Seymour “Hundreds of Muslim refugees were forced to converted to Christianity across Europe in recent years, according to church leaders.
In Austria, the rolls of Catholic churches swelled with Muslim immigrants. Other churches in Lebanon, Germany, and England also report growing numbers of Muslim refugee converts from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh, and Eritrea.
No national statistics exist, but many local churches across Europe attest to the influx of Muslim refugees becoming Christians. However they remain a small fraction of the millions of Muslims in Europe.
Reasons for conversion vary and one Muslim in Germany admitted he converted to avoid deportation back to Afghanistan, where his “life will be in danger.”
Conversion in Europe is not without danger. Many who abandon Islam for Christianity face family and community estrangement. One former Muslim in Lebanon was stabbed in the street after attending church.
Reliable data on conversions is not available but anecdotal evidence suggests Muslims who have fled conflict, repression and economic hardship in countries across the Middle East and central Asia convert to save their lives.
According to a June 2016 UNHCR report Wars and persecution have driven more people from their homes. The detailed study found a total 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just 12 months earlier. It is the first time in the organization’s history that the threshold of 60 million has been crossed.
“At sea, a frightening number of refugees and migrants are dying each year; on land, people fleeing war are finding their way blocked by closed borders. Closing borders does not solve the problem.” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filipe Grande.
Bombing, destruction and the slaughter of Muslims continue unabated even today. They have no one to turn to as their own dictators are hand in glove collaborating with war mongers in killing their own people .Ends