One Icelander managed to rouse 11,000 fellow citizens to offer help and refuge to Syrian refugees.
When the Icelandic government said it would take in a mere 50 refugees, a prominent author and professor swung into action by launching a Facebook campaign which had an open letter to the country’s welfare minister asking her to allow people to help.
Bryndis Bjorgvinsdottir, 33, urged Iceland’s 330,000 citizens to give their thoughts on helping those seeking protection.
Within 24 hours, 10,000 Icelanders said they would welcome Syrian refugees into their homes and look after them.
“I think people have had enough of seeing news stories from the Mediterranean and refugee camps of dying people and they want something done now", Bjorgvinsdottir told Icelandic public television RUV.
The Prime Minister has announced the formation of a committee to reassess the number of asylum seekers Iceland will accept.
Last year Iceland took in 1,117 immigrants, according to official statistics.
Comments
Having arrived in Europe there is also then old fashioned racism. Not helped by so many arriving with english as their second language. So EU member states are needing their second language to talk with the new arrival - with the latter making clear that their 1st choice country so often Sweden or Germany, is not actually the one they find themselves in.
Yet again Deutsche Welle hitting the nail on the head in their discussion about the myth versus the reality in aiming for a target country. Theirs. Germany.
And that Austria is just as advanced but little heard of. But it is on the route and, in this mobile technology world, is fast becoming an acceptable alternative to Germany so explaining why the Austrian Chancellor is having a pop at Cameron about us taking more.
DW's journalists also telling us that so many migrants are learning of or adapting their options as they travel the migrant route. And passing messages back about which countries have bad police and administrators taking bribes to process them on to the next member state.
http://www.dw.com/en/so-whats-all-the-fuss-about-germany/a-18688421