With tensions over armed clashes in the Middle East escalating after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, there is growing alarm that the entire European continent could face a massive influx of refugees.
On the 5th (local time), Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said, "If conflicts in the Middle East continue at the current level or worsen, the number of migrants heading to Europe will surge." According to the Financial Times (FT), Pope noted, "Armed conflicts are being added to a Middle East already rife with political instability," and warned, "As the likelihood of a protracted conflict grows, full-scale refugee movements will begin."
The Middle East is now on a knife edge not only between Israel and Iran but across the region. Physical clashes among armed groups directly backed behind the scenes by Israel and Iran are unrelenting in many places. As cross-border airstrikes and shelling are repeated, civilian casualties and the scale of internal displacement are also rising rapidly.
Lebanon is the area the international community is most worried about and watching closely. Since the Syrian civil war in 2011, Lebanon has humanely taken in a massive number of refugees, and its internal capacity to absorb them has already reached its limit. Lebanon's population is about 5.5 million, and 1.5 million refugees are living alongside them. It already ranks first in the world for refugee density relative to population. According to analysis by the International Organization for Migration, in the past few days alone nearly 83,000 migrants who had been staying in Lebanon hastily set out to flee to other countries in search of safety.
Their options for movement are very limited. Lebanon borders Israel to the south and shares borders with still-unstable Syria to the north and east. With overland travel effectively blocked, the most realistic escape route is only the Mediterranean sea route. Experts see a high likelihood that some refugees leaving Lebanon will head toward Europe, such as nearby Cyprus or Greece. Europe has a precedent, with about 1 million people arriving during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis.
European countries are also closely watching the possibility that this crisis will lead to a new movement of refugees. In 2015 and 2016, amid the Syrian civil war, Europe experienced an unprecedented influx in which more than 1 million refugees from Syria and Afghanistan poured uncontrollably into European Union countries. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees have entered Europe. Large-scale, uncontrolled inflows of migrants have upended Europe's political landscape and sparked serious social conflicts across many places.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is now deeply rooted in many European countries. Conscious of this, European Union (EU) governments say they will not welcome refugees crossing borders as they did in the past. Instead, they strongly want a far more comprehensive and proactive approach from the outset of the crisis. It is an expression of a firm will to intervene thoroughly from the early stages of a refugee influx and not lose control.
Cyprus, an island nation in the eastern Mediterranean, is cited as the front line among European countries most likely to be hit head-on by the coming refugee crisis. Cyprus is geographically the closest in Europe to Lebanon, the center of the conflict. Senior officials in Cyprus and other major Southern European countries have already begun crafting concrete border-control responses to refugees originating in the Middle East.
Nicholas Ioannides, Cyprus Vice Minister for Immigration, said at an official briefing on the 5th, "There is a distinct migration flow into our territory from the current Middle East," and emphasized, "We must be perfectly prepared to respond swiftly to any developments that may occur." The Cypriot government added that the EU has steadily and actively improved related border infrastructure, immigration screening procedures, and legal frameworks to respond jointly to such a critical crisis.