NYT reports that the island of Lesbos, whose population was 86,000 in 2011, has been accepting a growing amount of Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghan refugees, with 7,200 people arriving in May alone. United Nations refugee spokesperson Adrian Edwards insists that roughly 600 migrants now arrive in Greece's islands per day, and that the arrivals in Lesbos are straining the islands capacity, services and resources." The refugee agency believes that over 100,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe in 2015 alone and that this immigration has "created a crisis for the European Union".
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Personally, I find it horrible that my country is refusing to accept any of these refugees. The United States is a geographically massive country with significant depopulated areas. Meanwhile, China has enormous ghost towns all across its landscape. To refuse these people is unthinkable, given how shit conditions back home are, but Western Europe clearly can't contain all of these people alone. What should be done about the Middle Eastern refugee crisis? Should these migrants be encouraged or forced back to their birth countries, or should Western governments allow them to stay?