Refugees tire of Europe, want to go home

[Undertoad]

Sez LA Times in a marvelous clickbait headline

Refugees buying one-way tickets home after finding Germany intolerable

The reasons are myriad, but include overcrowded refugee centers, exasperating bureaucracy, unfamiliar German food, a lack of jobs and a spreading sense of resentment from Germans who fear their country is being overrun by Muslims.

Many refugees say they are now happy to trade a cold, heartless and lonely life in one of Europe's richest countries for the violence, insecurity and poverty back home. And they say they have realized, rather belatedly, that smugglers had sold them a pack of lies about big houses, well-paying jobs and the life of luxury they would find in Germany.

"I wanted to live in peace with my family as far away from war as possible," said Abdulla, a 37-year-old who had worked as a truck driver in Iraq. "But what I've seen in Europe is not what I dreamed about. It's not what [the smugglers] told me it would be.

Now, maybe I'm uninformed at this point, but all this emphasis on smugglers making huge promises to these folks is what confuses me. Why do these smugglers find it important to SELL refugees on the idea of leaving a war zone? Traditionally refugees get out of town because they're going to get killed, not because there's a big house promised to them at the end of the rainbow. And traditional refugees wouldn't go back if you paid THEM. These refugees are paying to go BACK. As the headline says, one-way tickets...!

So what the fuck, people? I was half tempted to put quotes around "refugees". What are they, really?

[xoxoxoBruce]

With the area in the constant turmoil of wars, and the food shortage from the drought, apparently some went with the smugglers promises of utopia hoping to grab the brass ring then have their families follow. Now finding out it was a hollow dream , are going back to their families, or to where the rest of the family sought refuge like Turkey.

1500 have decided to go back, out of 1.1 million who came, with 3000 more arriving every day, makes it a non-story.

[Happy Monkey]

A small number of people lumped in with refugees are actually economic migrants. There are economic migrants even when there aren't wars, but the refugee crisis makes it easier for them to get through with the pack. It also makes it harder for them to make it when they do get through, which explains the ones who want to go back.

Smugglers find it important to sell people on it because they get paid up front, and an economic migrant may be able to pay more than an actual refugee.