LETTERS: The Russian special military operation in Ukraine has unleashed untold sufferings to the Ukrainians. On the side of Russia, the people are targeted to receive a severe economic blow with the heaviest sanctions that is inflicted by the western powers.
Hundreds of lives have been lost, and many more displaced.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on Feb 24, two million people – mostly women and children – have now fled Ukraine.
The United Nations has warned the Ukrainian exodus is likely to become Europe's largest refugee crisis this century.
Russia's military action on Ukraine has triggered one of the largest and fastest refugee movements that Europe has witnessed since the end of World War II.
By March 2, only seven days into the war, 874,000 people were estimated to have fled to neighbouring countries. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has predicted that as many as four million people could flee the country in the coming weeks.
The European Union (EU) puts this number higher, estimating that there may eventually be seven million refugees. Regardless which number is correct, it is now abundantly clear that an unprecedented refugee challenge is unfolding in Europe.
In this chaotic situation, the European countries – Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia and Romania – deserve praise for having responded with extraordinary generosity.
At the Polish border, refugees are greeted by guards with sandwiches and tea. The Polish public gave out toys to children and offered to take the refugees to where they need to go.
Ukraine's neighbours have responded with an outpouring of public and political support for the refugees. Political leaders have said publicly that refugees from Ukraine are welcome and countries have been preparing to receive refugees on their borders with teams of volunteers handing out food, water, clothing, and medicines.
However, the responses from Europeans is in stark contrast to the response when bombs were falling in Syria or Afghanistan.
Is the world witnessing a Ukraine crisis double standard and has Europe response to refugees changed?
In the Global Detention Project report during the 2015 refugee "crisis", the EU called for detaining arriving refugees for up to 18 months. There seems to be an intractable challenge in Europe's ability to embrace the international refugee protection regime.
In contrast, some of those fleeing Ukraine – in particular, nationals from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East – are not getting the same generous treatment as the citizens of Ukraine.
We know that this is not how the international protection regime has operated in Europe, particularly in those same countries that are now welcoming refugees from Ukraine.
Public discourse in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania is often tainted by racist and xenophobic rhetoric about refugees and migrants, in particular those from Middle Eastern and African countries, and they have adopted hostile policies like border push-backs and draconian detention measures.
Truly, one could not help but wonder, would they have organised to provide food and shelter, if the arriving refugees are not Europeans?
Non-European refugees who fled Ukraine reported there was a lot of racism.
Africans and South Asians caught in the conflict reported that they were left for days with no food.
Incidents of non-Europeans being turned back from trains leaving Ukraine have gone viral on social media.
More recently, in late 2021, the terrible treatment of migrants and asylum seekers, most of them from Iraq and Afghanistan, trapped in Belarus borders with Poland and Lithuania sparked outrage across Europe. Belarus was accused of weaponizing the plight of these people, luring them to Belarus in order to travel to EU countries as retaliation against EU sanctions.
Polish border guards were brutal in their treatment of these refugees and migrants, many of whom sustained serious injuries from Polish and Belarussian border guards. Thousands were left stranded in the forests between the two countries in deplorable conditions with no food, shelter, blankets or medicines with at least 19 migrants were reported died in the freezing winter temperatures.
In response to this situation, Poland sent soldiers to its border, erected razor-wire fencing and started the construction of a 186km wall to prevent asylum seekers entering from Belarus. It also adopted legislation that would allow it to expel anyone who irregularly crossed its border and banned their re-entry.
The international community is concerned with the blatant racism especially in times conflict, and rightly so. Are refugees from places like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan less deserving of assistance?
Instead of safe passage, hundreds of migrants from these countries were stranded at the border between Belarus and Poland last year. Between 2015 and 2016, Germany took one million migrants but other European nations were not so generous.
It is disturbing to hear Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov say Ukrainians are Europeans. He said: "These are not the refugees we are used to. These people are Europeans. These people are intelligent, they are educated people. This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists."
Similarly, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that every refugee coming from Ukraine will be "welcomed by friends in Hungary", adding that one doesn't have to be a "rocket scientist" to see the difference between "masses arriving from Muslim regions in hope of a better life in Europe" and helping Ukrainian refugees who have come to Hungary because of the war.
There are a growing number of accounts of students and migrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia who have faced racist treatment, obstruction and violence trying to flee Ukraine. There are also accounts of Polish authorities taking aside African students and refusing them entry into Poland, although the Polish ambassador to the UN told a General Assembly meeting on Feb 28 that assertions of race or religion-based discrimination at Poland's border were "a complete lie and a terrible insult to us".
With this recent history as backdrop, the double standards and racism inherent in Europe's refugee responses are glaring. There are no calls from Brussels today to detain refugees fleeing Ukraine for up to 18 months. This begs the question how are the Ukrainians different from other refugees who had to face hostile treatment from the same European countries?
It is unbelievable that Petkov would say that Ukrainians are intelligent, they are educated people. Is he trying to say other refugees are nothing but an uncivilised lot? Are they any less deserving of help simply because of the colour of their skin? Or because they are from another culture and religion?
Several African leaders, including Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, have strongly criticised the discrimination on the borders of Ukraine, saying everyone has the same right to cross international borders to flee conflict and seek safety. The African Union stated "reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach of international law" and called for all countries to "show the same empathy and support to all people fleeing war notwithstanding their racial identity".
Similar messages were shared by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who said in a Tweet: "I am grateful for the compassion, generosity and solidarity of Ukraine's neighbours who are taking in those seeking safety. It is important that this solidarity is extended without any discrimination based on race, religion or ethnicity,"
UNHCR has stressed that "it is crucial that receiving countries continue to welcome all those fleeing conflict and insecurity – irrespective of nationality and race".
The Ukraine refugee crisis presents Europe with not only an important opportunity to demonstrate its generosity, humanitarian values, and commitment to the global refugee protection regime; it is also a critical moment of reflection: Can the people of Europe overcome their widespread racism and animosity and embrace the universalist spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention? As Article 3 of the Convention holds, all member states "shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin."
It is high time to separate race and religion from other factors in the welcome of refugees.
Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid
President of Malaysian Consultative of Islamic Organizations ( MAPIM )
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
This article contains material previously written by Michael Flynn and Rachael Reilly and published by the Inter Press Service