Refugee Crisis 2015


The year 2015 marked, for Europe, a provisional peak in a mass migration that had already been taking place since the second half of the 20th century, from the poorer countries of the Global South to the wealthy countries of the Western world. In search of a supposedly better life, more than one million people streamed into Europe in 2015, preferably to countries with generous social benefits and a high willingness to accept newcomers.

The refugee crisis of 2015 was triggered by multiple factors. In the Middle East, the terrorist regime of the Islamic State was raging; in the Syrian civil war it was one of many parties to the conflict, fighting for power against the regime of Syria’s ruler Assad. Another conflict region was found in Central Asia, where the Taliban—believed to have been defeated—once again militarily challenged the Afghan state supported by Western countries under the leadership of the United States. Together with all other conflicts worldwide, UNHCR estimated the number of “displaced persons” in 2015 at around 75 million people globally.

For many people, in 2015 flight from a conflict region did not end in the safe countries of the immediate neighborhood. Instead, a migration movement developed that ended thousands of kilometers away, in just a few countries of Central, Northern, and Western Europe. The statement by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, “We can manage this,” was spread around the world by mass media and social networks. Alongside refugees, numerous other people from the Global South accepted this message—understood as an invitation—in order to improve their living conditions under the cover of asylum.

Ten years after the events of 2015, this photo series presents impressions of the refugee crisis of that year from Budapest, Nickelsdorf (Austria–Hungary border), Vienna, and Spielfeld (Austria–Slovenia border). The term refugee crisis is used because the events became known under this label in media coverage and public memory. Instead of the term refugee, however, the more accurate term migrant is used.


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