No easy path: Complex mass migration, politics reshape globe
PARIS — Lined up before dawn, dozens of migrants outside a government office in Italy jostled to be one of the handful allowed inside to request asylum Wednesday.
The journeys that brought them to Rome and the sleepless nights wondering if they would be allowed to stay was being repeated in cities and countries around the world on World Refugee Day as millions of people sought to flee persecution, violence, war and poverty.
The Rohingya Muslims forced out of Myanmar to Bangladesh; teenagers from Mexico and Central America seeking safety in the United States; Syria’s war refugees; men from South Sudan and Nigeria crossing the Mediterranean Sea to feed their families — they are among the human wave roiling every continent.
“The international community must work with shared and long-term political choices to manage a phenomenon that involves the entire world,” Italian President Sergio Mattarella, whose country is on the receiving end of Europe’s immigration front line, said in a World Refugee Day message.