On The Ground With The Syrian Refugees

In her work with Save The Children and Unicef, Marion McKeone spent nearly two years with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and on the Syrian border for nearly two years. She was also involved in helping individuals to get out of Syria. She is back in Ireland at the moment and is stunned at how much factually incorrect detail is being reported in our news. The situation is so utterly complex that it is impossible to get anywhere near accurate reporting, but she says that President Assad of Syria seems to be painted as the victim in all of this, while big bad ISIS takes over She is also appalled at the outcry about a few thousand refugees coming in to Ireland – this is a tiny figure. Lebanon, a country the same size and population as Ireland, has taken in over 1.5 million. Turkey has taken in over 1 milllion Many people are asking the legitimate question of why aren’t countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia etc taking in anyone. McKeone argues this would do more harm than good. This is a very tribal situation – Sunni v Shia – and Saudi will help the Sunnis by arming them against the Shia etc. Marion has seen first hand the consequences of leaving refugees languishing in camps in places like Lebonon: the teenaged boys can't work and become increasingly disenfranchised, ISIS come along and offer them 100 dollars cash to take a few guns across the border, and they then end up becoming ‘terrorists’