Istronian wrote:...The source certainly does not say “85% of arrivals come from Syria” as you put.
….but we argue about semantics, by your own quotes less than half are true refugees ...
You completely misread Carol's post. Look at it again. She did not say 85 % come from Syria. She said 85 % came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. That is correct according to the chart she linked. She showed how that 85 % was distributed between the three countries by putting the percentages for each country in brackets after the name of each country, 41 %, 27 % and 17 % respectively. That distribution is also correct according to the linked chart.
How do you arrive at "less than half are true refugees". Syria is not the only country with conflict that threatens the lives of its citizens. There is a major war against IS going on across the whole of the north of Syria and Iraq as well as the civil war between Assad's regime and the Free Syrian Army. IS are slaughtering Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims not adherent to IS's strict sect and Kurds. Russia is blanket bombing civilian areas including schools, hospitals and mosques and then looping back to drop more bombs on the rescue workers going in to try to save lives. Turkey is supposedly fighting against IS but in reality is mainly bombing the Kurds who are fighting IS. There is more scattered conflict in Afghanistan but non the less a threat to the civilian population, especially if you live in an area where you do not belong to the tribal group controlling that area.
I suppose an Afghan family trying to flee the country because their daughter will be executed by the Taliban if she tries to go to schools are just more economic migrants? Perhaps people fleeing much of sub-Saharan Africa because they face either fighting for a rebel army or having their arms and legs amputated with a machete are just "seeking a better life". Using that judgement anybody trying to avoid death is just "seeking a better life" because not being killed is usually better than being killed.
Warwick