FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Global Yazidi Organization Urges Europe to Confront Humanitarian Crisis

Houston, USA– March 13, 2016 – Yazda urges Europe to address the humanitarian emergency for refugees and migrants in Greece and Balkan countries. 

According to the UNHCR, more than 20,000 refugees are now facing harsh conditions in Greece after the Balkan countries have shut their borders. According to UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards, around 8,500 of these refugees are at Eidomeni near the border shared with the Republic of Macedonia. 

Yazda is following the miserable situation of these refugees with concern. Some eyewitnesses report that children, the elderly, and people with special needs are not receiving adequate food, shelter, and medicine.  

Yazda urges the international community to temporarily relocate these migrants until these areas are stabilized. The migration crisis in Europe is merely a symptom of greater turmoil in the Middle East. The focus must be on bringing peace to conflicted regions, not on blocking the paths of migrants. 

Yazda demands that European leaders consider those refugees who fled their homes because of ISIS attacks, especially those who are facing discrimination and ethnic cleansing in their home countries such as Yazidis, Christians and other minorities. 

In addition, Yazda urges the European Union to create safe and legal ways for these refugees to travel to Europe under managed programmes such as  humanitarian admission programmes and private sponsorships.

According to a recent British report, 80 percent of Yazidis are desperate and want to leave Iraq. Since the last ISIS attack on a Yazidi community in Sinjar, more than 70,000 Yazidis have left Iraq, according to the directorate of Yazidi religious affairs within the KRG government.

Yazda continues to call on western governments to address the root causes that are driving so many people, especially ethnic religious minorities, from their homes in Iraq and Syria.

All Rights Reserved to the Global Yazidi Organization.

by

by