How the war in Iran could most affect Europe

Summary

In the early hours of September 2, 2015, 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, his 5-year-old brother Galip and their mother Rihan drowned when their overcrowded boat capsized during the 12-mile journey from Bodrum, Turkey, to the Greek island of Kos. They were fleeing the siege of Kobane, a Syrian-Kurdish border town under assault by the Islamic State group. The photograph of Aylan’s lifeless body, face-down on a Turkish beach, shocked the world and became a defining symbol of the human cost of the Syrian civil war—a single child representing the millions fleeing conflict and persecution. Now, as a new war engulfs Iran, history may be repeating itself, but on an even more catastrophic scale. “Even before the current war in the Middle East there were more than 20 million forcibly displaced people in the whole region,” said Gerald Knaus, founder and director of the European Stability Initiative. “The latest fighting is producing further displacement, with no end in sight.” A Stark Warning Since late February, between 600,000 and one million Iranian households—up to 3.2 million people—have fled their homes, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Most are fleeing from Tehran and other major urban areas toward the rural north, escaping strikes that began on February 28. The human toll has been severe. Thousands of people have been killed across the Middle East. As of March 22, 3,231 people had been killed in Iran, of which 1,407 were civilians including 214 children, according to U.S.-based rights group HRANA. Thirteen U.S. service members had been killed. Strikes have been reported in more than a dozen countries, and in Lebanon nearly 1 million people have been displaced after Israel escalated hostilities with Hezbollah. The European Union Agency for Asylum has issued a stark warning: with Iran’s population of approximately 90 million, even partial destabilization could generate refugee movements of an “unprecedented magnitude.” The agency noted that displacement of just 10 percent of Iran’s population would rival the largest refugee flows of recent decades. To understand what Europe might face, one need only look back at the Syrian civil war—a conflict that fundamentally reshaped the continent’s politics and societies. By July 2015, more than four million Syrian refugees had fled to neighboring countries. The breakdown was staggering: Turkey hosted 1,805,255 Syrian refugees, Lebanon took in 1,172,753, Jordan absorbed 629,128, Iraq sheltered 249,726 and Egypt received 132,375, per UNHCR. Lebanon’s refugee population represented approximately one in five people in the country, while Jordan’s constituted roughly 10 percent of its population, according to Amnesty International. Turkey became the crucial gateway to Europe. Over 800,000 refugees and migrants came via the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece in 2015, accounting for 80 percent of the people arriving irregularly in Europe by sea that year. The geographic proximity and established migration networks made Turkey the natural corridor for refugees seeking to reach the continent—a role it would likely play again if Iran’s conflict drives similar westward movement. “The main reason for the extraordinary refugee year 2015 in the Aegean was loss of hope among many refugees,” Knaus told Newsweek. “The second reason is as important, however: Turkey allowed Syrians in. Today and for many years already this is no longer true.” Over one million refugees and migrants reached Europe by sea in 2015 alone. Of these, some 972,500 had crossed the Mediterranean Sea, with an additional 34,000 crossing from Turkey into Bulgaria and Greece by land. Half of those crossing the Mediterranean that year—500,000 people—were Syrians escaping their country’s brutal civil war. The human cost was devastating: some 3,735 people were reported missing and believed drowned in 2015. By the time Aylan Kurdi’s body washed ashore, more than 300,000 people had risked their lives to reach Europe, and over 2,600 had perished in the attempt. Gateway to Tragedy The Syrian exodus wasn’t Europe’s only migration crisis. After the NATO-backed fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya fell into chaos and became a major transit hub for African and Middle Eastern migrants. That year alone, more than 1,500 people drowned or went missing in the Mediterranean—the deadliest year since UNHCR began tracking such data. A record 58,000 irregular migrants, asylum seekers and refugees reached Europe by sea in 2011, and by 2015, the central Mediterranean route saw 150,000 crossings. Libya’s collapse created a humanitarian catastrophe. Migrants faced horrific abuses in detention centers and were often forced onto boats by traffickers, risking death at sea. The resulting influx of refugees fundamentally reshaped European politics. Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, erected a border fence along its frontier with Serbia in September 2015 after recording over 411,000 irregular crossings that year. Orbán’s hard-line stance against migration became a blueprint for nationalist leaders across the continent. The crisis shattered the Schengen ideal of open borders and fueled the rise of far-right, anti-immigration parties. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, surged in popularity, capitalizing on public anxiety over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over one million asylum seekers. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly National Front) gained ground with anti-immigration rhetoric. The Netherlands saw Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom become a major political force, while in Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy—which would eventually lead her to the prime minister’s office in 2022—gained traction on a platform that included strict migration controls. In the U.K., the refugee crisis became a flash point in the Brexit referendum. Immigration was weaponized by pro-Leave campaigners, infamously through the “Breaking Point” poster, which showed a line of refugees under the slogan “The EU has failed us all.” The image, widely condemned as inflammatory, became a symbol of how migration fears were exploited to sway public opinion. A decade later, the political aftershocks endure. Anti-immigrant sentiment remains potent and far-right parties have cemented their influence across Europe. Meloni now governs Italy, Wilders’ party recently won Dutch elections, and the AfD has become the second-largest party in several German states. A Crisis of Much Greater Scale Iran’s population of approximately 90 million dwarfs Syria’s prewar population of 22 million. With 3.2 million Iranians already internally displaced, humanitarian agencies warn that even a modest escalation could trigger refugee flows on a scale never before seen. A displacement of just 10 percent of Iran’s population—9 million people—would far outnumber Syrians who fled their country during the entire civil war, potentially overwhelming both neighboring host countries and Europe’s already strained asylum systems. “So far, relatively few people have left Iran—the vast majority of those displaced remain in the country. But as the war continues and the situation becomes more tenuous—in addition to the strikes themselves, things like the destruction of civilian infrastructure—more and more people will assess whether to leave,” Kelsey P. Norman, a fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute and director of the Women’s Rights, Human Rights and Refugees Program, told Newsweek. Europe is still grappling with the aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which triggered the continent’s largest refugee crisis since World War II, displacing more than 8 million people across borders and placing immense strain on national asylum systems. Around 8,000 Iranians applied for asylum in the EU in 2025. Even a modest increase in displacement would represent a dramatic surge from current levels. The International Organization for Migration has called for immediate de-escalation, warning that “military escalation would force more families from their homes and hit civilians hard.” Iraq, which already hosts more than 280,000 refugees from other countries and has nearly 1.2 million internally displaced people, finds itself bracing for a potential influx from neighboring Iran. The country’s refugee infrastructure, already strained from years of internal conflict and the ISIS insurgency, faces the prospect of absorbing potentially hundreds of thousands more displaced persons. Turkey—already hosting roughly 1.8–1.9 million Syrian refugees in 2015—faces a daunting prospect. If Iran’s conflict drives mass displacement, Turkey could again become the primary Aegean corridor to Europe, forced to choose between hardening its borders or allowing large numbers to transit. “Approximately 1,500 Iranians per day have been permitted to cross from Iran into Turkey so far, but Turkey is preparing for the possibility of large arrivals, weighing options like creating a buffer zone, setting up camps along the border or permitting certain groups of individuals to enter the country,” Norman added. “Turkey will not accept a mass number; the ruling AKP party is still contending with the politics of allowing more than 3 million Syrian refugees to remain for so long. But even if it does allow camps along the border or the creation of a buffer zone, it will absolutely seek financial assistance to do so from Europe. The infamous 6 billion euro deal with Europe from 10 years ago taught Turkey that it can effectively leverage the politics of refugee hosting to demand—or sometimes blackmail—Europe into providing financial assistance. If needed, we can expect that Turkey will employ the same tactics again,” Norman said. Knaus added that if Turkey does not allow large numbers of refugees in, they will not be able to reach the EU and remain trapped. Germany and Sweden, which absorbed the largest numbers of Syrian asylum applicants during the 2015 crisis, would again find themselves on the front lines. In 2015, EU+ countries (EU‑28 plus Norway and Switzerland) recorded 1,349,638 asylum applications—more than twice the level recorded in 2014. Syrians were the largest group of asylum applicants, accounting for 27 percent of applications in the EU+, with 369,871 applications registered that year. Germany and Sweden together received 47 percent of Syrian asylum applications in the EU between April 2011 and July 2015. Germany alone pledged 35,000 places for Syrian refugees through its humanitarian admission program in 2015. Europe Divided The Iran conflict has exposed deep divisions within Europe over migration policy. In January 2026, Spain announced it would grant legal status to potentially 500,000 undocumented migrants already in the country. While Spain’s move came before the Iran war began, European officials fear that any offer of sanctuary could create a pull factor if Iranian refugees begin fleeing en masse. The decision has created tensions with France, which shares a border with Spain and fears an influx of migrants taking advantage of Spain’s more permissive policies. This tension echoes the fractures that emerged during the 2015 crisis, when disagreements over burden-sharing and border control threatened EU unity. The difference now is that Europe’s political landscape has shifted significantly rightward, with anti-immigration leaders like Meloni, Orbán and Wilders holding substantial power. In Knaus’ view, those political dynamics cannot be separated from the forces that he said produced Europe’s largest refugee movements in the first place. “It is worth recalling that the two largest refugee crises affecting Europe in the past decade were closely linked to the actions of one man, Vladimir Putin,” he said. “First through Russia’s military intervention that helped keep [Bashar al-] Assad in power during the Syrian war, and then through the invasion of Ukraine that forced millions of Ukrainians to flee. The political effect is striking: Many of the same far-right parties in Europe that warn most loudly about refugees and fantasize about the chimera of the ‘Great Replacement’ openly sympathize with the very leader whose wars produced the largest refugee crises in Europe since the Second World War.” As the war in Iran enters its fifth week, humanitarian workers fear that Aylan Kurdi’s story—and those of thousands like him—will repeat themselves on European beaches. The 2015 crisis transformed European politics, fueled the rise of far-right movements and led to renewed debate over open borders within the EU. A new wave of displacement from Iran would test European unity, humanitarian commitments and political stability in ways the continent has not experienced in generations.