Western Leaders Responsible for European Refugee Crisis

According to a leading member of the Syrian Popular Front for Change and Liberation, the West is responsible for the current refugee crisis in Europe.

GENEVA (Sputnik) — Western countries, including the United States, are primarily responsible for the beginning of the pan-European refugee crisis, a leading member of the Syrian Popular Front for Change and Liberation said Thursday.

"The United States, not only Europe, share great responsibility, because they stirred up the situation in Syria, they armed mercenaries from almost all countries of the world,” Qadri Jamil told RIA Novosti.

He added that this intervention from abroad drastically complicated the situation in Syria and made the local population flee to Europe.

Europe is currently facing a dire migration crisis. The European Commission estimates that some 500,000 asylum seekers has arrived in the bloc since the beginning of 2015.

Majority of the refugees are Syrians, fleeing the country that has been mired in a civil war since 2011. Damascus is fighting against a number of opposition forces, as well as radical Islamist militant organizations, such as the ISIL group and al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front.