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Comment by d33 | Hacker News Reader

Why do refugees need to go to as far as Sweden to escape war? Why wouldn't they stop at the nearest EU country, or even closer to Syria?

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Forcing all the refugees to stay in Greece or Bulgaria would just collapse those countries instead. You may remember that Greece had its own financial crisis, and Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in the EU.

One of the contributory factors to the war in Syria was that 10% of the population were refugees from Iraq ...

A good analogy would be, if you were very thirsty, but there were no shops around and you had no money. You would walk up to the nearest house and ask for some water. But if they refuse, would you stand there and demand they give you water, or would you just go to the next house up the street and try again?

I feel like this is similar - refugees are met with animosity in good case and outright aggression in worst, so they just keep on moving until they get to the place that will accept them.

Not correct. Refugees stay in entry-point countries until their refugee application is processed, which can take months. Meanwhile, many of them seek to find illegal ways to move up north.

I don't see how what I said and what you said is mutually exclusive, or why what I said is incorrect. Refugees get to the entry-point countries, where they are met with squalid conditions in camps, aggression from locals and media, so they just pack their things and move somewhere else.

No they can't pack things and move elsewhere because they have no papers. Asylum applications are processed in the country of entry.

I'm sure that people who escaped war don't give a shit about having papers - they just want to be treated like people, not dogs, so if you put them in a camp with horrible conditions it's only natural that some of them will go somewhere else, whether they have papers or not. I still don't see how my original statement is incorrect.

If they want to be treated as people, maybe they should not try to forcefully and violently break through borders, throw away food they are offered by volunteers because it's "not halal", or set fires to their own camps. To be treated as a human being, you have to first behave like a human being.

So it's okay for them to break the rules because they have escaped the war and at the same time it's wrong for the countries obeying the rules and laws to protect the borders. Because....reasons...

I never said it's ok for them to break the rules or wrong for countries to protect their borders. The original question was "why do refugees go all the way to sweden, instead of staying in the first eu country". I've tried explaining why, not defending them.

Because they're very far from welcome in those countries (Turkey especially).

mainly welfare reasons, and also parts of their family are already in northern europe.

They actually explain this in some stories. For example, some people had friends and relatives in Sweden. Some choose it because Swedens track record in human rights.

Also, the nearest EU countries were Turkey and Greece then Italy and Hungary who don't seem to accept refugees at this point.

Greece and italy accept and house refugees. They just don't want to stay here.

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