(Photo Credit: The AP/ Alexander Zemlianichenko)
A recent surge of migrants fleeing war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East has cost the United Kingdom a collective $1 billion in supply chain disruptions, according to a recent report from the British Standards Institution.
In its 2015 Security Risk Index Report, BSI explained:
The major influx of refugees fleeing conflict-riven countries in the Middle East has caused disruption to cargo transportation across the continent. Large numbers of refugees surging across national borders has forced the re-imposition of checks at previously open borders in the European Union, delayed or stopped transportation at key choke points, or led to the outright closure of some borders to all traffic. BSI reported border closures or transportation stoppages and slowdowns at ten different European Union borders in three weeks in September, an unprecedented disruption since the EU countries began allowing the free movement of people and goods across borders in 1995.
Border closings and ramped-up border checkpoints across nations including France, Austria, Germany, Hungary and Croatia in response to the massive immigration crisis have delayed and interrupted trade shipments for goods like food and pharmaceuticals, costing Europeans billions in losses, BSI said. The report added:
The surge of refugees into Europe in September led many countries to re-impose border checks in areas where they had previously allowed free passage of cargo and people. Border checks have resumed at Germany’s border with Austria and the Czech Republic, Slovakia’s border with Hungary, Austria’s border with Hungary, and Norway’s border with Sweden. All of these checks have slowed trade in Europe, leading to mounting costs for shippers. In particular, the checks along Germany’s southern border have hurt trade with Italy, as Italian exports to Germany have been delayed.
The company noted that shipping delays in the port city of Calais in northern France added $1.2 million per day to shipments to the U.K., adding, "with the number of families and individuals displaced by war across Africa and the Middle East growing 50% year on year, BSI warns that costs to international shippers will continue to rise."
Driven by years of a steadily escalating civil war, millions of Syrian refugees have fled their homes and begun streaming across Europe’s borders in droves to escape the violence that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in their home country. In the face of the largest refugee migration crisis in recent history, some nations like Hungary have already closed their borders against the onslaught of millions of immigrants trying to get into the country.
Other countries like Croatia are considering building a fence while desperately trying to funnel migrants through their country and into neighboring nations by train, according to one report from the U.K.-based Independent.
Germany, a nation that once welcomed the influx of refugees with open arms, is now debating how many more migrants it can sustain.
President Obama has already said the United States will allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S. this fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1.