While the conversion of hotels to house male asylum seekers has provoked protest and arson in Ireland, one English town has welcomed them as a benefit to the economy.
However, there are also concerns about the growing impact of the worldwide refugees crisis.
Mo Juha is an 18-year-old Syrian refugee now living in Evesham in Worcestershire
He arrived with his family via Lebanon and does not believe he can go back to Syria – even for a visit – because of conscription.
“Everyone 18 to 50 has to go to army,” he said.
Mr Juha said people end up in the army for ten years or more with their family not knowing where they are.
He is now studying in the Heart of Worcestershire University and appreciates the life he and his family have in Evesham.
When the local hotel in the town, situated on the edge of the Cotswolds, was taken over to house male asylum seekers there was little local opposition.
In fact when the Home Office started to move the men out and replace them with families there was opposition from some local groups including Evesham Vale Welcomes Refugees (EVWR).
The men had put down roots in the area working with voluntary groups and even going to college.
And the facility has become a benefit to the local economy according to local Methodist minister, Reverend David Haslam and spokesperson for the EVWR.
“There are staff there getting their wages, security staff getting wages, providers of good and services, the local laundry is doing well out of it”.
“People say it is costing £8 million a day to look after asylum seekers, but we say yes, but it is all going back into the local economy”.
On the streets of Evesham most people seem to have accepted the asylum seeker centre but there are concerns about the future.
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One man points out that 750,000 people came into Britain last year, which is he says the size of a city that has to be absorbed.
A local woman says she is “50/50” on the issue.
“It’s great to be able to help people and everything but equally it puts pressure on us and the NHS.”
Legal expert Professor Catherine Barnard of Cambridge University says in the long term the question is whether the international refugee convention is fit for purpose.
It was drawn up after the Holocaust during World War II, but at that time there was not the international travel and international communications that there is today.
She says those on the left do not think the convention goes far enough while the right wants to rip it up.
Prof Barnard points out that there are 110 million displaced people worldwide and more could come from Gaza.
She says a new international agreement is needed.
“The numbers coming are more than most populations are willing to tolerate so something needs to be done,” she says
