UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) – The European migrant crisis can only be resolved if conflicts are eliminated in the Middle East and North Africa, from where refugees are flowing in great numbers to EU member-states, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic said, adding that closing doors will not solve the issue.
"If you approach the problem just by securitization, let's do more patrolling, let's intersect boats, let's declare war on smugglers and traffickers, it sounds good. But it's not efficient. It will not eliminate the challenge that we are facing," Simonovic stressed on Friday.
According to the UN Assistant Secretary-General, Europe has so far been inefficient in preventing conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, unable to end the ongoing violence in the regions, at the same time failing to protect basic human rights.
"You cannot hope to solve this crisis just by closing the door. Those desperate people will go through windows if you close the door," Simonovic said referring to thousands of people fleeing their conflict-torn home states.
Simonovic stressed that the root causes of the large inflow of migrants that Europe has been trying to deal with must be addressed.
"Migration and refugees is now changing roots. Previously it was Mediterranean, now it's going eastwards, going through Balkans, Turkey, Greece Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary," Simonovic explained, adding that the European Union "must find more efficient ways to end conflicts and to prevent conflicts and to better address some challenging human rights situations."
EU countries facing a major migrant crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people flee the crisis-torn regions in the Middle East and North and Sub-Saharan Africa hoping to find refuge in the European Union.
Late on Friday, Germany and Austria decided to allow thousands of migrants accumulated in Hungary to enter their territories.
Hungary has completed the construction of a fence along the country’s southern border with Serbia to deter migrants from illegally entering the country. It is also mulling the construction of a barrier on the border with Croatia.
