Tulane’s chapter of Catholic Relief Services is working to educate students on campus about what seems to be a war on refugees, both in the countries from which they have been displaced and those in which they seek asylum.
“As of the end of 2014, 38 million people around the world had been forced to flee their homes by conflict and violence. Never in the last 10 years, have the world seen such a high estimate for the number of people newly displaced in a year. (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre)” CRS University
Where are the refugee crises occurring?
In 2011 in the city of Deraa, Syria, 15 school children were arrested and supposedly tortured for writing anti-government graffiti on a wall. The community members held what were originally peaceful protests, calling for democracy in the country and the release of the children. On March 18, 2011, the army open fired on the protestors and killed 4 people. Unrest festered within the community members and soon spread throughout the entire country as these events further proved Syria’s lack of freedom.
After the shootings, the protestors demanded the resignation of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, however, there were still citizens that supported the President. When President Bashar al-Assad refused to step down from his position, violence broke out between the protestors and supporters. In July 2012, the violence became so great that Syria entered a state of civil war.
This civil war has now lasted for 6 years, displacing around 6 million refugees within the country and another 5 million have fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East and Europe.
Additionally, in 2014, ISIS (Islamic State), an extremist militant group, began to take over large portions of Iraq. ISIS has since invaded Syria, causing both the Syrian military and the rebel forces to fight the group separately. In September 2014, the United States launched airstrikes on the ISIS fighters in Iraq but have refrained from moving into Syria. However, because Iraq is located directly next to Syria, the air strikes are causing chaos in Syria as well.
CRS Tulane on-campus
This year (2017) we held a tabling event at which we educated college students about where refugees are fleeing from, where they are seeking asylum, and their demographics. Additionally, we provided them the opportunity to send a pre-written letter to their local government officials through CRS’s website, requesting that they stand against the refugee ban that President Trump has been trying to pass.
More than 125 college students came to the table and sent letters to their congressmen, demanding basic human rights for refugees.
You can join us and send a letter to your local government officials at this link! The letter is pre-written and all you need to do is fill in your name and address!