A lot of migrants come to these places by boat, having been brought by smugglers who charge them large fees to make the dangerous passage across the ocean. But many European countries have or are attempting to shut their doors to refugees, leading to an influx of refugee camps on the edges of countries like Greece and Italy. Many refugees who flee those countries as well as other countries in Africa and Asia wind up coming to neighboring countries, and many also try to seek asylum (or safety) in Europe. Some of the largest groups of refugees come from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Israel/Palestine, and Myanmar. Many people leave their homes because their cities are being bombed, their children are being recruited to war, or they are being persecuted because they are an ethnic minority or belong to some other kind of marginalized group. The main cause, of course, is an upsurge in violence or a political insurrection. Most refugees come from low-income countries with limited resources. Economic hardship is another major cause. However, people who flee their homes just because of climate disaster (and not war, violence, religious persecution or the like) are not considered refugees-though often climate disasters create the violence that defines someone as a refugee. For example, the Syrian unrest that led to the refugee crisis was partly catalyzed by a drought that stripped farmers of their livelihood and caused a dearth of jobs and anger in the cities. Environmental disasters and climate change are major causes, with 25 million 'climate refugees' currently existing across the globe. These crises are caused by many disparate forces. As of 2017, there were 65.6 million refugees displaced worldwide roughly 5 million were Palestinian refugees, 21 million were from Africa, 31 million were from Asia/the Middle East, and 8 million were from Latin America and the Caribbean. (Half a century ago or so, Europe experienced its own refugee crises as events such as WWII displaced millions, causing an influx of European migrants to arrive at the US). Most modern refugees come from Africa, South America, and the Middle East.

There's no precise date or time that the contemporary crisis started, though since 2008 the number of displaced people worldwide has increased exponentially.

A brief background about the crisis can help the reader understand the poem's message a bit more clearly.Ī 'refugee' is usually defined as someone who's been forcibly displaced from their home because of war, persecution, or violence.

One of the reasons Warsan Shire's 'Home' has been so popular is that it vividly explores the emotional modes through which refugee stories are experienced and judged. But the refugee crisis has also become one of the defining and most pressing issues of our time. To try and summarize something like the 'contemporary refugee crisis' is a difficult task-the nature of the crisis is that it is made up of millions of disparate stories and narratives, none exactly alike.

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