Europe braces for Middle East migration surge

Europe is preparing for a potential rise in immigration from the Middle East because of the escalating conflict in the region, as countries try to avoid another surge of refugees to the continent, according to the UN’s top migration official.

Amy Pope, director-general of the International Organization for Migration, told the FT that the conflict in the Middle East would lead to greater migration if it continued.

“We’re in a region where there’s already been a lot of instability . . . you pile in on top of that the conflict that’s happening and the likelihood or the possibility that the conflict is prolonged, and we will start to see people moving,” she said.

Europe experienced a sharp increase in immigration in 2015-16 when Turkey allowed more than 1mn refugees from Syria and Afghanistan to cross its borders into EU countries. Europe has also taken in more than 4mn Ukrainian refugees who fled the country after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

By contrast, Pope said that EU governments were now keen to “have a much more comprehensive approach early on, as opposed to waiting for the conflict to bleed over”, particularly given the anti-immigrant sentiment present in many countries.

Officials in European countries and particularly Cyprus, because of its proximity to Lebanon, are already discussing how to handle a potential rise in arrivals from the region. Cyprus is also the only EU country so far to have been hit by Iranian drones, which targeted a British base on its soil.

Cyprus’s deputy migration minister Nicholas Ioannides on Thursday said that while there were “flows from the region” at the moment, “we should be ready to address any developments”. The EU had “improved our infrastructure, our procedures and our legislation . . . to address this kind of crisis”, he added.

Pope said that “post-Syrian crisis”, European countries were considering “what are the lessons learned, how do you manage with limited resources, how you manage given uncertainty?”

One potential model could be the agreement signed between the EU and Turkey in 2016, Pope said, which provided financial support to Ankara in exchange for hosting Syrian refugees.

“Supporting countries to enable them to host displaced communities is a way of sharing the burden and providing a sense of solidarity,” she added.

A few hundred Iranians have reportedly crossed into Turkey in recent days, according to local witnesses.

Pope said it was too soon to estimate how many would flee from the region. “Right now people are primarily moving inside their countries — within Iran, within Lebanon, which is probably the place we’re the most concerned about,” she said, pointing to the large population of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The IOM said that some 83,000 people had been displaced in Lebanon while seeking safety in recent days, in addition to the 60,000 who are still displaced since last summer when Israeli strikes targeted the leadership of Hizbollah. Israel has launched fresh strikes on Lebanon after the Iran-backed militant group fired rockets at Israel on Sunday.

Migrants from other countries, such as Afghanistan, were starting to move back home, Pope said, despite “fragile” conditions there. “We expect to see more of that. We expect to see more go into Iraq . . . the surrounding areas.”

Pope said it was important to allow refugees to flee. “One of the concerns is right now some of the borders are being closed to Iranians who are fleeing the conflict,” she said, adding that there was “the risk to human life” if people were not able to look for safety “amid quite a lot of instability and violence”.

Pope also pointed to the “often forgotten” foreign workers that made up large parts of the population in many Gulf countries and whom she said “are often not provided with the same level of support and attention and information as the nationals of a country”.

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