To keep shouting, they are refugees! !!

[ginmakesitallok]

And not migrants!!!!

The people who are dying on Europe's shores are not migrants! They are not coming to Europe for jobs, for benefits, because they think it will be an easy life. They are escaping war, ISIS, starvation, rape, death. They just want to live and give their children an opportunity to live.

Stop calling them migrants, as if they just fancy living somewhere else. Brits rearing abroad are migrants. Other eu residents coming here are migrants. The dead baby on a beach in Greece was a refugee.

I think the porblem is people are combining the people in the med, drowning, fleeing, just trying to get somewhere safe with those in Calais.

some of those in Calais started off escaping ISIS, not all did, and all in Calais if they would be entitled to asylum in the UK would be entitled in France and are chosing to not apply there and then - this isn't the case for those poor souls washing up on Greek islands.

Personally, I think we should be taking a quota from Greece/Turkey - from the people who apply for help there, offering shelter for some, and all of Europe should be doing the same, not just waiting to see who's ruthless enough to get to Dover, which will be young men without families to slow them down.

The distruction of paperwork suits the people smugglers fine - those people getting off the shores, across Europe and disappearing in to their favoured country without at any point getting help from the local authorities are going to disappear into the black economy of virtual slave labour. You might risk being sent back if you have your papers, you also might be able to prove your story and get permission to work legally, and then not be prepared to work for less than the minimum wage in dangerous conditions.

Rumbelina - until they have applied for anything, they aren't legally asylum seekers - what they have done is migrate in an illegal way - it's technically correct but a phrase that's been used in a political way. Not sure what they could use instead on the news that wouldn't seem like passing judgement... I think reporting those landing in Greece as refugees would be fine, but just beyond that, it gets harder.

You can't put the blanket term of refugee on those people trying to get into Europe as an awful lot of them are not refugees but economic migrants. But if they are economic migrants they could still have been living in the misery of abject poverty and therefore prepared to take considerable risk. War is not the only killer.

I do, however, think the USA should also be taking their fair share of people displaced in the Middle East.

It'd be easier to classify them if they had some sort of ID - but they all seem to throw this away at the first chance, so we have no idea of who they really are. There will be a lot of people hiding their dirty laundry that way...

I'd rather we knew who we were getting TBH - for example the refugees that threw the Christians off of the boat and drowned them over a religious disagreement aren't really the sort of people I'd want wandering around my town as their moral compass is obviously not set to western standards just yet - but they've vanished into the crowd.......

Combine that with those that then cross through several safe countries to camp at Calais & you can understand why people are skeptical of their motives.

Unfortunately, this then expands to cover all refugees/migrants/escapees/victims/criminals/opportunists (take your pick - they're all in the mix)

Illegal immigrant is NOT technically correct - it is not illegal to seek asylum!!

No; it's illegal to smuggle yourself across the channel in a lorry or on a train. The asylum seeking happens at Dover, not at Calais.

But, as I said, it's not very humane for the press to keep saying II instead of AS, given the context.

How about the Middle East taking its share of the migrants from Syria? The Gulf states are very wealthy but most are refusing to take anyone from Syria. Europe should be applying pressure to the Gulf states to do more to help their fellow Muslims.

I also agree with Kanye and wonder what would have happened to Europe in WW2 if all the young men had decided to flee to the USA (or anywhere else) rather than stay and fight? What sort of men are these that are fleeing, leaving women and children to suffer whatever fate awaits them?

I get incredibly angry at this "first port of call" nonsense. Does anyone really think that Turkey can host the entire refugee population from Syria? Do the people up-thread spouting this nonsense have any idea how many refugees there are in Turkey already?

This! Turkey is moving refugees on as quickly as it can: people returning from holiday in Bodrum report that they are only being allowed to stay two days. It is not the refugees' fault that they aren't allowed to stay there. People who cite that mantra are basically looking for any excuse not to take responsibility. The sooner the "first port of call" provision is removed from all treaties on asylum, the better - it's totally unrealistic anyway in an age where the reality is that refugees have to travel wherever some trafficker sends them. Often they have to take the first plane out =- they can hardly force the plane to land as soon as it crosses the border.

Stripey, maybe the Middle East should take more. But what do you suggest should happen until they do? Should we leave children drowning whilst we try to persuade them?

See todays bbc headline news :-Emissions 'far above' 2C target. We could all be refugees if the sea level starts rising. See my other threads. Wake up people.

inimitable I would suggest that people in Turkey should stay in Turkey. It is not true that they are being forced to move on after 2 days, many Syrians have been in Turkey for years. Sure no one wants to live in a refugee camp but sadly there are people all over the world in the same situation. Do you suggest that Europe should open its doors to everyone in the world now living in a camp?

And as for children drowning, absolutely tragic but it is the parents of the child pictured in the media who are responsible for putting him in such danger by going to sea in a rubber dinghy. Did you know that the family had been turned down for asylum in Canada, and that the father now plans to go back to Syria? He must think his life won't be in danger if he goes back.

Using any kind of catch all term and bundling the multitude of different situations and problems together is not doing anyone any favours at all.

Newspapers and articles that mix the reporting of the problems in Calais alongside that of people drowning as they try to escape countries like Syria only stokes some people's resentment of the issues and does nothing to help people who are fleeing horrific situations.

I can see the headline on the Daily Mail from my desk, with a picture of that toddler in Bodrum, and the headline mentions a "human catastrophe". For once, the Mail has something right. This is a human catastrophe. When thousands of people are willing to put not just themselves but their children on rickety boats to cross the sea, and are drowning in their thousands doing this, then any attempt to downplay the situation or muddy the waters is wrong.

But lots of the young men in Calais are fleeing the wars in Somalia and Eritrea. They will be conscripted for life as teenagers. If your boy was facing that would you not scrape together everything you own to send him out of the country?

Yanbu. Keep shouting.

Saudi is just over the border. From a language and culture point of view it would make sense for Saudi to be opening their borders too.

FFS It shouldnt be about "well they're not takimg any, so why should we?" The UK can easily take several thousand and should, we shouldnt be looking around to see what other countries are doing.

Not all are Muslims though. Who'd be a poor non Muslim in Saudi.

Stripey, do you seriously contend that the children's parents put them in that boat for any reason other than utter desperation? Are you trying to suggest that actually, it's all fine in Syria, and it's all made up? That poor man is going back to Syria to lay his wife and children to rest there. Does it occur to you that he now feels he has nothing to lose?

Frankly, posts like yours utterly disgust me.

it is the parents of the child pictured in the media who are responsible for putting him in such danger by going to sea in a rubber dinghy

You know, when people take extraordinary risks, when they do things that are apparently inexplicable, I tend to wonder why.

What might possibly force you to put your child in terrible danger? Have a think.

Arguing that it's the parents fault for putting their children in a boat is not just disgusting, but to me always smacks a little of inherent racism. As in, it implies that "those people" care less about their children and are thus more willing to do something that puts them at risk.

Imagine how awful your life and situation must be to risk putting your young helpless children on a dinghy across the Med.

Do people really imagine those families are prepared to do that for less reason than you might be?

The family whose dead child has been disrespectfully splashed all over the papers were not fleeing Syria, they had been in Turkey for quite some time. Their lives were not in danger in Turkey, that is why I think the parents are at fault. They put their children in a rubber dingy without life jackets. What sort of parent would do that? If they were being forced onto a rubber dingy at gunpoint I would accept there was nothing else they could do, but there is nothing to suggest that is what happened. They paid people smugglers and willingly put their children's lives at risk.

Definitely YANBU

keep shouting - these are refugees, HUMANS

Anyone can see those pictures of that poor little boy and feel anything other than shame and deep, deep sadness, is beyond contempt.

I'm completely sickened by David Cameron, and every other politician who bleats on about solving the root causes of the problem. As if we have time for that.

Anyone who wants to complain that these people experiencing lives beyond hope are merely "migrants", anyone who doesn't have a conscience about that, needs to go and read a fucking history book. There's a reason we remember Churchill and not Chamberlain, a reason why Western Europe is the intended destination for so many fleeing war, persecution and political strife. And it's not our fucking benefits system.

I have a boy a similar age to Aylan. I weep just thinking about it.

Thurlow I completely agree with you RE: inherent racism. There's a Chris Rock skit where he basically says something along the lines of "you're just lucky to be born American", so stop pretending you're better than everyone else, and that you did something special to be born in a country like the USA.

Seems quite relevant here.

Shouting racist - typical mumsnet response. I've explained in my previous post why I think the parents of those poor children are responsible. That does not mean I have no sympathy for Syrians, or for the many many thousands of other refugees in the world.