Refugee movements

People fearing persecution, violence, and terror often choose to abandon their property and livelihoods to relocate elsewhere. Beyond violence-related causes of refugee flights, the relevance and relative importance of other political, economic, or social determinants of involuntary displacements are still unclear. Refugee movements have become increasingly complex as refugees and asylum seekers often travel similar routes to other types of migrants with different migration motivations such as work, family reunion, or study. In many western asylum destinations, this has led to perceptions that many claims for asylum are unfounded, and domestic pressure to restrict asylum immigration has increased. At the same time, many conflict-neighboring countries perceive that they shoulder a disproportionate burden by hosting large refugee populations. The difficulty of providing durable solutions for people in refugee situations in the region of origin seems to be the root cause of the continuous arrival of asylum seekers in distant western destinations.