ABSTRACT
Wars and conflicts are some of the most common causes of forced migration. However, the situation becomes more complex with genocide and its link with emigration. Although some studies reject this connection, the author sides with those who argue in favour. Genocide is embedded in our social fabric, and this means that it actually influences forced migration, albeit not (always) in a straightforward manner but more as a metaphysical threat appearing in the (sub)conscious of all possible victims. Later on, this text presents how Western, especially European Union, states and societies react when they encounter incoming victims of war and conflicts, including those escaping genocide. It focuses on refugee migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first half of the 1990s, and from Syria and Iraq in 2015–2016. The author shows that in the last few decades, immigration control in the West has been profoundly transformed. A complex system of regulation and surveillance of the whole migration process was created. The outcomes are seen in the appearance of specific confined spaces, which he names global and local total institutions. Potential victims of war and genocide often end up in local total institutions, in some cases locked in by physical walls and guards and, in others, by invisible borders of social exclusion. Analysis of the reactions of political decision-makers, the media, and parts of society to refugees coming from countries where genocide was (later) confirmed (i.e. Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s and Syria and Iraq in 2015/2016) revealed similarities in how refugees were treated and perceived, although it is also clear that the situation and control over refugee migration in the EU has been exacerbated through the years. Unlike in the 1990s, refugees are nowadays recognised and even labelled as terrorists, criminals, rapists, and even as a public health threat and carriers of various infectious diseases.
