Conflict resolution is key to solving migrant crisis

Up to 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian civil war so far, and more than 11m Syrians have become refugees or displaced within Syria. That’s the equivalent of twice the population of Cork City killed and twice the population of all of Ireland homeless.

The suffering in the Middle East did not happen by some unavoidable catastrophe like a tsunami. The chaos let loose by the US/Nato-led resource wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have spawned reactionary forces such as Isis, whose calculated violence and reign of terror is the equivalent of the German and Japanese reign of terror during the Second World War.

The focus, therefore, must be to find immediate ways of stopping the slaughter and suffering and then examine what has caused these multiple but closely interconnected crises, and find effective ways of preventing such crises and suffering into the future.