The Backdrop of the Crisis in Europe

Abstract

Sharp divisions between religious sects, often mingled with tribal/ethnic rivalries, rapid rise of opposing militias, including the emergence of the ISIS, and involvement of external powers in the conflicts, have made the MENA region extremely unstable and violent. [Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen were badly fractured.] [with swaths of territory controlled by different non-state groups]. In sub-Saharan Africa, too, a crescendo of conflicts, waves of violence and a rise in armed groups, including Boko Haram, were forcing people to flee. Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Burundi were afflicted by fierce internal conflicts. Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen were simultaneously gripped by famine [involving some 20 million people]. Many of these desperate people were striving to reach the southern shores of Europe, sailing mostly from ports in Libya or Turkey, by unsafe boards relying on traffickers and facing inhuman hardships and deaths, which the EU could hardly ignore.