Canadian Red Cross CEO calls seeing refugee crisis firsthand 'striking'

The CEO of the Canadian Red Cross has seen firsthand the refugee crisis in the middle east.

Conrad Sauve just returned home from a trip to Germany, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He made a stop on News Talk Radio’s MainStreet Tuesday.

It has been well documented that thousands of refugees have headed to Germany, which recently welcomed 50,000 Syrian refugees before imposing border controls this week. Sauve explained the German Red Cross has set up 190 reception centres to accommodate the refugees funneling into the country.

“I met a lot of the refugees and you are struck by the number of women, the number of children,” said Sauve.

Sauve said he even saw a woman with a three-day-old baby asking for blankets and other items.

One of the issues certain countries – like Germany – are having is there are not enough resources to accommodate all the refugees moving in. Sauve said there were so many people flooding into Germany last week that a few new reception centres needed to be set up but there were not enough cots.

“Civilians are the ones paying a heavy price.” -Conrad Sauve.

“So, the Canadian Red Cross, we sent on Sunday 10,000 cots to them along with the Americans.”

According to Sauve, there were around 100,000 migrants moving through Europe as of last week.

Sauve was also in Afghanistan and points out what we are seeing is a conflict that is not ending.

“And of course in all these situations what we have to look at all the time is civilians are the ones paying a heavy price,” Sauve said.

“A lot of people are caught in the crossfire and the sense is at one point there’s no hope.”

Sauve pointed out there is about 5 million refugees in and around Syria.

“I think the important thing is there needs to be a political solution to this war in the Middle East because otherwise the flow will not stop of desperate people.”