As children die reaching for Europe's shores, empathy fades

European people are learning what the Australians learned before: accepting boat people prompts more and more of them to come, greater higher and higher death tolls as they fall victim to the human smugglers.

Sorry, that is not a humanitarian solution.

Around 93% of the Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslim and most of nearby Saudi Arabia's population is also Sunni Muslim, yet these refugees risk even their children's lives to reach the secular and/or Christian countries of Europe and North America. These refugees aren't clamoring to get to other Muslim nations either.

Shame on Saudi Arabia, and the other Muslim nations, for not doing their part to help fellow Muslims. Think of all the lives that would be saved if the wealthy nation of Saudi Arabia were to put out the welcome mat to them.

Although I welcome the Muslim refugees and would like to see my nation do more to help them, the lack of support for the Muslim refugees from Muslim nations leaves a bad taste in my mouth for their religion.

Well said Sensato.

lack of support for the Muslim refugees from Muslim nations leaves a bad taste in my mouth for their religion.

The lack of support for the refugees leaves a bad taste in my mouth for the ruling families of the various Gulf nations, and for the western leaders who stand behind them.

Credit needs to be given to Jordan, however.

A good article.

In response to the "what are the muslim nations doing?" comments, let us remember one very important thing. If it weren't for the Americans, British, French, Russians etc wanting to remove Assad in Syria, Gaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq, and the Taleban in Afghanistan then we wouldn't have had this vast human tragedy in the first place. Just look at the huge mess in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan today. Unresolved and civil war. The very reason why these muslim nations won't help out is because they have seen who caused this in the first place. And I'm British.

In response to the "what are the muslim nations doing?" comments, let us remember one very important thing. If it weren't for the Americans, British, French, Russians etc wanting to remove Assad in Syria, Gaddafi in Libya, Hussein in Iraq, and the Taleban in Afghanistan then we wouldn't have had this vast human tragedy in the first place. Just look at the huge mess in Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan today. Unresolved and civil war. The very reason why these muslim nations won't help out is because they have seen who caused this in the first place. And I'm British.

You forgot the Russians fighting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 80s. The CIA arming and training them led to the Taliban. The Gulf War of 1991 was caused by Iraq invading Kuwait and the Western Allies wanting to protect the oil, but Saddam was at fault. The Iran/Iraq wars were nothing to do with the West.

Anyway... I think more effort needs to made to keep the refugees in Turkey, where they are safe, rather than allowing them to commit suicide trying to get to Greece and the rest of Europe.

Europe does not need these people and should not accept them. I do support however Europe supporting Muslim nations such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon both financially and materially to look after these refugees.

Europe helped to cause this mess so it should help "these people". By the way "these people" means innocent children and their parents and grandparents fleeing their own country and homes because of civil war.

I distinctly quoted only the recent operations against Assad, Gaddafi, Hussein, and the Taleban in respect of this crisis. I made no other mention of non-western conflicts such as Iran-Iraq which has no connection with the current refugee crisis (and this JT article). The Kuwait oil war was correct but Bush snr did not remove Hussein when he had the chance. His son created the current mess in no connection to the Kuwait war.

The UK and the US are the worst culprits. They meddle in middle east politics and leadership, create civil war, and one refuses to accept the ensuing refugees whilst the other avoids them geographically.

@TigersTokyoDome - you are engaging in a pointless exercise: why not go back further in time and history? If the UK and France had not divided up that part of the world after WWI "things would be different today." If the Ottoman Empire had not lost to the Allies in WWI "things would be different today." If the Ottoman Empire had not entered WWI "things would be different today." If the Ottoman Empire had done things differently prior to WWI "things would be different today." If ...

@TigersTokyoDome. Europe? France and UK did the mess in Middle East. They betrayed promises, created states out of nothing to divide and rule. Don't say it's Europe fault.

I'm from Italy. How my country is supposed to accept those people when our economy is weak, the unemployment rate high, the government is obliged not to rise the national debt and parts of the Union speak to close their borders?

Whe are already full of muslims here, where are the rich arab countries of the Gulf?

They are using this war for their political plays too but don't want those desperates in their home. They are/will be a problem. Let Europe deal with it.

If countries like Sweden and Germany were to put aside some of that money they spent on receiving huge volumes of refugees they could probably quadruple the UNHCR's budget, and I bet that would be far more helpful than putting millions of people through the obstacle course of death only to be met with disappointment once they reach their destination.

How is this all the UK and France's fault Mezzanote? Italy had a hand in the shape of the middle east before and during WW2, as did Germany and a few others. Those countries with Empires and colonies all played a part in shaping the Arab world... but you can't absolve the people who live there of blame. No-one set tribe against tribe, sect against sect... they did that themselves. No-one interpreted their holy book for them... they are doing that themselves. Sunny against Shiite infighting has nothing to do with Europe... it's like Catholic vs Protestant, two aspects of the same religion split by different interpretations and beliefs.

So stop blaming the west for this - they did it to themselves!

@Thunderbird2. I don't blame the West; some european nations did more harm than others though. And, as you say, the locals did their part in this mess.

Italy never set a foot in MiddleEast. its colonial empire was in Africa and was smaller and far less lasting than Franch or English empires. Ironically enough, the first victim of those unilateral acts of aggression was Italy itself. The colonial adventure was an economic disaster for my country.

But we are speaking of Middle East now.

Before the WWII many middle eastners wanted a great pan arabic state. Two European states whom at the time held the region as their playground, tricked them making false promises to attain aid against their enemies. When the danger passed they created false nations to divide the arabs and continue to express their influence. This lead to the born of new nationalisms and planted the seeds of the future instability in the region.

Even whitout the Israel thing that, incidentally, was an english idea.

That said, yes, today we should look ahead and all work togheter to find a solution.

But it doesn't exsist. Too much contrasting interests now.