A blurred distinction between refugees and migrants is a recipe for chaos

Among the most evocative and distressing press images of the year were those of Maryam Nuri Hama Amin. The 24-year-old Kurd from Soran, in northeastern Iraq, drowned along with 26 others in the Channel last month. In photographs published after her death, she is seen at her engagement party smiling at the camera in a park, by a lake, amid fallen leaves. She looks beautiful, bright, confident and full of hope.

If you read reports and trawl through Twitter, you’ll find that many believe Maryam was a victim of a heartless international order, of European xenophobia, of the British government’s inability to manage its own affairs properly. But how did she come to end up in a dinghy that would sink in the cold waters of the Channel? And how can we prevent others like Maryam from undertaking such a perilous journey?

Separating out the legal, jurisdictional and political elements underlying the migration crisis is a difficult task, but any durable solution demands that we at least try to do so.