By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

After violent clashes over the weekend between refugees, migrants and police in the "Jungle” refugee camp in Calais, France, clearing of the camp is finally underway.
This is while the United Nations has warned that it is worried for the children. Similarly, rights groups and children’s advocates warn that the UK and French governments’ treatment of unaccompanied minors at the camp is"inappropriate,” with children as young as eight expected to "herd” themselves alone to large warehouses, where they will then be sorted and transported to reception centres throughout France.
Many of those children are eligible for resettlement in the UK, yet are being ignored by the government and remain in limbo. With no support offered to them during the clearing process, the main concern is that children are likely to fall through the cracks. And we all know how France and the UK have a poor track record on this issue.
The argument is that at a time when countries such as Iran are home to millions of refugees from Afghanistan, how come France and Britain are unable to house just about 6,000 refugees? This is specially important, as these countries keep telling us that they are at the forefront of protecting human rights and refugee rights, but when it comes to action they both fail to do their homework, which is tragic.
At a time when United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees praises Tehran’s continued support for millions of Afghan refugees residing in Iran, Amnesty International says selfish wealthy nations are still shirking their responsibilities on refugees.
In its annual report,  the human rights body says just 10 countries are sheltering 56 percent of the world’s refugees and they are among the poorest nations. It goes on to state that the richest countries in the world, who can absorb many more refugees, are doing close to nothing.
According to Amnesty International, the top refugee hosting countries are Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Kenya, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad. What Amnesty forgets to mention in its report, however, is that the wealthy Arab monarchs in the Persian Gulf have also done close to nothing to host any Syrian refugees. Here, the Saudis make no secret about not welcoming refugees, even though they are a primary instigator of the wars that are forcing people to flee their homelands.
The point is, across the world, many observers blame the policies of Western powers and their regional vassals on a surge in terrorism and war in the Middle East and North Africa that have forced people to flee their homes. This has been particularly the case for several years in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, where the refugee crisis has been a predictable outcome.
It is time for the Western governments to realise that their "humanitarian” interventions have only destabilised the heartlands of the Muslim world. Thanks to their regime change fantasies, the ongoing colonial wars of aggression and deceit have only turned many regional states into top refugee-makers; and that’s just one of the reasons so many people are heading to the West.
The troubling part of this tragedy is that the United States and its allies refuse to take any responsibility for the current mess, much less end the disastrous wars. On the contrary, they say the bogus War on Terror must go on. If that is the case, which obviously is, there will be more refugees. Nobody should be surprised when that happens.