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I think it's a mixture of things mainly geo political. I will try to keep this as factual as possible. Arab spring has affected countries in Northern Africa reducing their ability or will to secure their borders from people traffickers. The rise of ISIS is making vast areas of Iraq and Syria unlivable for anyone apart from those they fairly randomly choose is a good muslim. Basically you must be a Salafi Extremist or maybe just useful to them. Even if you're considered a good muslim you have to pay enourmous "taxes" without complaint or be branded a heretic. Turkey is playing fast and loose with the international community, they're using any help to fight ISIS to try to defeat the Kurdish instead, maybe possibly even funneling arms to ISIS to help them fight the kurds. This is because the Kurdish political party is a direct threat to the ruling party of Turkey. Turkey doesn't seem to give a single fuck about people crossing their border to syria, westerners going to fight for ISIS or refugees coming the other way.
In terms of the boats, last year the EU stopped or significantly reduced the Mare Nostrum programme. Which was run by the Italian navy with other partners to find and take refugees in the middle of the Med to holding centers. They would scuttle the ships and arrest anyone on board who was found to be trafficking. They cut that back a lot, because some argued including UK Prime minister that it was encouraging migrants. It wasn't, and now traffickers don't get caught as much, and a whole bunch of people drown now.
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[–] PsychoChomp 0 points 3 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago
I think it's a mixture of things mainly geo political. I will try to keep this as factual as possible. Arab spring has affected countries in Northern Africa reducing their ability or will to secure their borders from people traffickers. The rise of ISIS is making vast areas of Iraq and Syria unlivable for anyone apart from those they fairly randomly choose is a good muslim. Basically you must be a Salafi Extremist or maybe just useful to them. Even if you're considered a good muslim you have to pay enourmous "taxes" without complaint or be branded a heretic. Turkey is playing fast and loose with the international community, they're using any help to fight ISIS to try to defeat the Kurdish instead, maybe possibly even funneling arms to ISIS to help them fight the kurds. This is because the Kurdish political party is a direct threat to the ruling party of Turkey. Turkey doesn't seem to give a single fuck about people crossing their border to syria, westerners going to fight for ISIS or refugees coming the other way.
In terms of the boats, last year the EU stopped or significantly reduced the Mare Nostrum programme. Which was run by the Italian navy with other partners to find and take refugees in the middle of the Med to holding centers. They would scuttle the ships and arrest anyone on board who was found to be trafficking. They cut that back a lot, because some argued including UK Prime minister that it was encouraging migrants. It wasn't, and now traffickers don't get caught as much, and a whole bunch of people drown now.