Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, clutching children in one arm and belongings in the other, were warmly welcomed by leaders of neighboring countries like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania. However, while the hospitality is appreciated, it has also highlighted the severe double-standard in the treatment of migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, particularly Syrians.
Syrian refugee Ahmad al-Hariri, who fled the war in his country for neighboring Lebanon 10 years ago, spent the last decade hoping in vain to escape to a new life in Europe.
Watching European nations open their arms to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in less than a week, the father of three can't help but compare their fates.
"We are wondering, why were Ukrainians welcome in all countries while we, Syrian refugees, are still in tents and remain under the snow, facing death, and no one is looking to us?" he told Reuters in a refugee center where 25 families are sheltered on the edge of the Mediterranean city of Sidon.
In the Arab world, where 12 million Syrians have been uprooted by war, critics ranging from al-Hariri to activists and cartoonists contrast the Western reaction to the refugee crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine with the way Europe sought to hold back Syrian and other refugees in 2015.
Some recalled images of refugees walking for days in harsh weather, or losing lives in perilous sea crossings as they tried to breach Europe's borders.
On Monday, four days after Russia launched its attack, the European Union said at least 400,000 refugees had entered the bloc from Ukraine, which has land borders with four EU states.
Millions more are expected and the EU is preparing measures which would offer temporary residence permits as well as access to employment and social welfare – a swift opening of its doors at odds with its response to wars in Syria and elsewhere.
By early 2021, 10 years after Syria's conflict erupted, EU states had taken in 1 million Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers, of which Germany alone took more than half. Most of them arrived before a 2016 deal in which the EU paid billions of euros for Turkey to continue hosting 3.7 million Syrians.
This time the welcome has been immediate.
Bulgaria's Prime Minister described Ukrainians as intelligent, educated and highly qualified, stating: "These are Europeans whose airport has been just bombed, who are under fire." Bulgaria has said it will help everyone coming from Ukraine, where there are about 250,000 ethnic Bulgarians.
Last year 3,800 Syrians sought protection in Bulgaria and 1,850 were granted refugee or humanitarian status. Syrians say most refugees only pass through Bulgaria to wealthier EU states.
Poland's government, which came under heavy international criticism last year for pushing back against a wave of immigrants crossing over from Belarus, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, has welcomed those fleeing the Ukraine war.
In Hungary, which built a barrier along its southern border to prevent a repeat of the 2015 influx of people from the Middle East and Asia, the arrival of refugees from neighboring Ukraine has triggered an outpouring of support and offers of transport, short-term accommodation, clothes and food.
Some of the language from these leaders has been disturbing to Arab migrants, and hurtful.
Hungary and Poland, for example, both say that refugees from the Middle East who arrive at their borders have already crossed other safe countries which have a duty to provide shelter.
"These are not the refugees we are used to ... these people are Europeans," Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov told journalists earlier this week, of the Ukrainians. "These people are intelligent, they are educated people.... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists..."
"In other words," he added, "there is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees."
The change in tone of some of Europe's most extreme anti-migration leaders has been striking – from "We aren't going to let anyone in" to "We're letting everyone in."
Those comments were made only three months apart by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In the first, in December, he was addressing migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa. In the second, this week, he was addressing people from Ukraine.
Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also defended the different approaches. "I must reject drawing comparisons between those fleeing war and those trying to get into the country illegally," he told a United Nations meeting in Geneva.
The welcome has been eased by the fact that Ukraine is home to a large ethnic Hungarian community.
Ties like those have led some Western journalists to suggest that the humanitarian disaster in Ukraine is different to crises in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, because Europeans could relate more closely to the victims. Their comments sparked a wave of condemnation on social media, accusing the West of bias. Clips of the reports were widely circulated and heavily criticized across the region.
Syrian journalist Okba Mohammad says that statement "mixes racism and Islamophobia."
Mohammad fled his hometown of Daraa in Syria in 2018. He now lives in Spain, and with other Syrian refugees founded the first bilingual magazine in Arabic and Spanish. He described a sense of "deja vu" as he followed events in Ukraine. He also had sheltered underground to protect himself from Russian bombs. He also struggled to board an overcrowded bus to flee his town. He also was separated from his family at the border.
"A refugee is a refugee, whether European, African or Asian," Mohammad said.
Some journalists, too, are being criticized for descriptions of Ukrainian refugees. "These are prosperous, middle-class people," an Al-Jazeera English television presenter said.
"These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East ... in North Africa. They look like any European family that you would live next door to."
The channel issued an apology saying the comments were insensitive and irresponsible.
A television reporter on U.S. network CBS described Kyiv as a "relatively civilized, relatively European" city, in contrast to other war zones. Others said Ukraine was different because those fleeing were middle class or watched Netflix.
The CBS reporter Charlie D’Agata apologized, saying he had been trying to convey the scale of the conflict. CBS did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Nadim Houry, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, said parts of the media coverage were disturbing and revealed "ignorance about refugees from other parts of the world who also have the same aspirations as Ukrainians."
Houry and other critics also say some governments are showing double standards on the issue of volunteers who want to fight in Ukraine against Russian forces.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Sunday backed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appeal for people to join an international force to fight Russian troops. "Absolutely. If people want to support that struggle, I would support them doing that," she told BBC television.
In contrast, British police warned Britons travelling to Syria to help fight the Bashar Assad regime eight years ago that they could be arrested on their return, saying they may pose a security risk to the U.K.
Britain's Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Truss's remarks. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the situation was different to fighters who joined groups like Daesh in Syria, but that the government would discourage people from going to Ukraine.
As more and more people scrambled to flee Ukraine, several reports emerged of non-white residents, including Nigerians, Indians and Lebanese, getting stuck at borders. Unlike Ukrainians, many non-Europeans need visas to get into neighboring countries. Embassies around the world were scrambling to assist their citizens in getting through.
Videos shared on social media under the hashtag #AfricansinUkraine allegedly showed African students being kept from boarding trains out of Ukraine, to make space for Ukrainians.
The African Union in Nairobi said Monday that everyone has the right to cross international borders to flee conflict. The continental body said "reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach of international law."
It urged all countries to "show the same empathy and support to all people fleeing war notwithstanding their racial identity."
Polish U.N. Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski said at the General Assembly on Monday that assertions of race- or religion-based discrimination at Poland's border are "a complete lie and a terrible insult to us."
"The nationals of all countries who suffered from Russian aggression or whose life is at risk can seek shelter in my country," he said.
Szczerski said people of some 125 nationalities had been admitted to Poland on Monday morning from Ukraine, including Ukrainian, Uzbek, Nigerian, Indian, Moroccan, Pakistani, Afghan, Belarussian, Algerian people and more. Overall, he said, 300,000 people have arrived during the crisis.
When over a million people crossed into Europe in 2015, support for refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan was relatively high at first. There were also moments of hostility – such as when a Hungarian camera operator was filmed kicking and possibly tripping migrants along the country's border with Serbia.
Some say Arab countries should have done more to support the military struggle against Assad, which grew out of widespread popular protests against him in 2011, and helped the refugees more. Apart from Syria's neighbors Jordan and Lebanon, Arab countries have taken in few of the war's displaced people.
"We do not blame European countries, we blame Arab countries," said Ali Khlaif, living in a tented camp near the northwestern Syrian town of Azaz. "European countries welcome those from their people. We blame our Arab brethren, not the rest."
