Countries previously hostile to refugees embrace Ukrainians.

Because the conflict in Ukraine triggers a mass exodus of refugees, nations have opened their doorways vast to Ukrainians, providing a heat welcome that has traditionally been denied to different populations fleeing conflicts throughout the globe.

That distinction turned extra stark this week, when the Greek authorities was accused of shunning determined Syrian asylum seekers, even because it strove to be hospitable to asylum seekers escaping violence in Ukraine.

Human Rights 360, a Greek human rights group, mentioned in an interview on Thursday {that a} group of about 30 Syrian refugees, together with a number of kids, had been stranded for days on a small island within the Evros River, which separates Greece and Turkey. One of many kids has gone lacking, in line with the group, whereas a pregnant lady had suffered bleeding. Thursday was their fifth day there, in subzero temperatures at evening, the group mentioned.

Their plight marked a pointy distinction to Greece’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees since Russia’s invasion of the nation. On Wednesday, President Katerina Sakellaropoulou of Greece visited Ukrainian kids at a Ukrainian cultural middle in Athens because the authorities scrambled to enroll lots of of kids within the Greek faculty system. She mentioned the nation had a “obligation to indicate our energetic solidarity.”

At the very least two and a half million Ukrainians have fled their nation in what the United Nations has referred to as the quickest rising refugee disaster since World Conflict II.

Greece’s migration minister, Notis Mitarachi, pointed to a “nice distinction” between displaced Ukrainians and asylum seekers from different nations on Wednesday.

“Ukrainian refugees are experiencing conflict in a rustic that borders the European Union,” he defined to the Greek Parliament, including that many different migrants enter the bloc “illegally” and “7 out of 10 are deemed to not be refugees” by the federal government.

Some human rights advocates have pointed to a humanitarian double normal wherein Europe prioritizes aiding white Christians over serving to others fleeing conflict and strife.

“The great outpouring of solidarity with Ukrainian refugees stands in stark distinction to the therapy of migrants and refugees from different components of the world, most of them brown and Black,” Judith Sunderland, an affiliate director for Europe and Central Asia for Human Rights Watch mentioned in an interview. “Europe is doing the best factor this time however this super empathy and solidarity ought to stretch to everybody in want.”

Different European leaders have additionally described Ukrainian refugees as much less of a menace and extra deserving of assist than others.

Denmark, which has among the hardest anti-immigration laws in Europe, handed a regulation on Wednesday that provides Ukrainian refugees expedited residency and work permits, giving them entry to the training and colleges well being care programs. The regulation got here as Syrian asylum seekers have been languishing for months in deportation facilities in Denmark, after the nation began revoking their residency permits in 2019.

In 2016, as many refugees fled conflicts within the Center East and Africa to Europe, Denmark handed a regulation requiring newly arrived asylum seekers handy over valuables, together with jewellery and gold, to assist pay for his or her keep within the nation. Ukrainian refugees are exempt from that regulation.

The Danish authorities has additionally made an settlement with native authorities geared toward integrating asylum seekers into Danish communities inside 4 days of their being granted a short lived residency allow.

“It’s going to go very quick. Inside a few weeks many Danes can have a brand new colleague, a brand new neighbor or a brand new classmate,” Mattias Tesfaye, Denmark’s immigration minister, mentioned on Danish tv.

The welcome given to Ukrainian refugees in nations like Greece, Denmark, Poland and Hungary, which have been brazenly hostile to refugees up to now, is a putting turnaround from the European refugee disaster in 2015 when an inflow of multiple million refugees and migrants escaping conflict and battle within the Center East and Africa fanned an anti-immigrant backlash in Europe, and helped buttress far-right events railing towards the perceived menace of Islam.

Poland, whose ruling right-wing Regulation and Justice get together, got here to energy on the peak of Europe’s migrant disaster in 2015, after working a marketing campaign that impressed choruses of “Poland for Poles,” has taken within the largest variety of Ukrainian refugees. Hungary, whose hard-line prime minister, Viktor Orban, beforehand constructed a border fence on Hungarian-Serbian border to assist hold out refugees, has additionally opened the nation’s borders to Ukrainians.

The small island separating Greece and Turkey has been disputed by Turkey up to now. Human Rights 360 mentioned it’s on Greek territory, and argued that Greece ought to take within the migrants. Following the studies concerning the stranded Syrian refugees, the Greek police mentioned on Thursday that that they had launched a search however had not discovered the migrants.