Editorial: To all those who helped take a bow

Migrants wrapped with blankets to shelter from the evening cold on the Austrian side of the Hungarian-Austrian border. AP photo / Muhammed Muheisen

The $1 million raised by our "Forgotten Millions" appeal - in partnership with World Vision - is a testament to the compassion and generosity felt by so many in New Zealand at the sight of refugees pressing at the gates of Europe and their stories, many as reported by Rachel Smalley.

The pictures on television and those accompanying Smalley's reports showed people not so different from us. The clothes they wear, their command of English, their physical health and aspirations reflect the fact that not long ago they had houses, schools, businesses and jobs in cities not so different from ours.

When tensions in their countries erupted in civil wars, they would have remained in their homes as long as they could. Nobody uproots their family lightly and leaves everything they own. Constant dangers and destruction can be borne while there is hope war will not last much longer. For millions in Syria this year, as in Iraq and Afghanistan earlier, that hope has run out. Millions have crossed Syria's borders into Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, where they sought shelter mostly in United Nations camps.

Conditions in the camps, as Smalley reported this year, are wretched at best, dangerous for some and no base for people to rebuild their lives. No wonder those in countries not far from Europe began clamouring to get there. The flow turned into a flood at the beginning of this month after Germany responded to an appeal from Italy for its European Union partners to take a share of the refugees.

Graphic as the pictures have been, and touching as the human stories are, the many thousands on the roads and railway tracks trying to get to Germany are only a fraction of the numbers still waiting in refugee camps. They are the forgotten millions, who will be helped by the money Herald readers have contributed. There may be just as many displaced people still inside Syria who are equally in need. It is a multi-sided conflict with threats from all directions and may generate many more refugees before it is over.

Already it is one of the largest migrations of population the modern world has seen, equivalent to about 1 per cent of the population of their desired destination, the EU. The numbers became so great last week that even Germany put a limit on those it could accept, pending an EU agreement to allocate a fair proportion to each member state, excluding Britain and Denmark.

Agreement is proving difficult. Germany and a few other members this week agreed to accept 120,000 people. But the eastern states - Slovenia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia which lie between the migrants and Germany - would not agree to a quota. No government likes to have its immigration decisions made by others.

But many governments are being led by their better citizens in this crisis. New Zealand's is one of them. The depth of popular sympathy for the Syrian refugees that forced an increase in our annual intake has now added almost $680,000 to the $436,000 raised earlier in our appeal for World Vision. Those who have donated any amount of money should take a bow - that generosity should help make the lives of at least some people in transit a little more tolerable.