America’s Role in Creating the Refugee Crisis

Syria

Syria has been called “the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.”  It’s believed that about half of Syria’s pre-war population — which was approximately 22 million, so about 11 million people — have been forcefully displaced or killed.  

Conservative estimates cite that the war has killed nearly half a million civilians.  

Currently, there are approximately one million Syrians living in makeshift refugee camps inside Syria, and 13.5 million Syrians that require humanitarian assistance.  

From September 2014 to October 2016, U.S.-led coalitions have carried out over 5,616 airstrikes in Syria; the majority were carried out by U.S. warplanes.  Again, keep in mind that each airstrike can drop multiple bombs.  Civilian death tolls were estimated to range from 850 to 1,200 civilians killed, according to independent watchdogs.  However, the U.S. has only publicly admitted to killing 33 civilians.  Amnesty International has called out the U.S., saying that the “U.S.A. must come clean about civilian deaths caused by coalition airstrikes in Syria.”  

Out of 26,171 bombs the U.S. dropped in 2016, about 12,192 bombs were dropped on Syria.

Amnesty International:  “U.S.A. must come clean about civilian deaths caused by coalition airstrikes in Syria.”  

U.S. error has also led to strikes on Syrian government troops, leading Bashar al-Assad to accuse the U.S. military of coordinating attacks with ISIS.  Assad’s statements clearly implied that the U.S. was working with ISIS to overthrow his regime.  Once the Russian government informed the U.S. of their errors, the strikes were immediately halted, and an apology was issued within 24 hours.  CNN sources even reported that the U.S. would consider “condolence payments” to relatives of the dead soldiers, similar to what the U.S. has offered to relatives of those killed in airstrikes in Afghanistan.  

The families of the civilians killed in error have received nothing — not even a safe haven to flee [U.S.] bombs. 

The families of the civilians killed in error have received nothing — not even a safe haven to flee our bombs. Since the war in Syria began in 2011, the U.S. has accepted 18,007 refugees — an insignificantly small number when 18,450 refugees were displaced in just three days; it’s estimated that 6,150 Syrians were displaced per day from January to August 2016 alone.  Right now there are over 6.3 million displaced people in Syria.

That number is expected to grow.  In the one week and one day that Trump has been in office, there have been 150 airstrikes carried out in Syria.