Europe has rediscovered compassion for refugees – but only if they’re white | Daniel Howden

Separating those fleeing conflict into deserving' and undeserving' is immoral and a betrayal of European values

How should we regard the two faces of Europe's refugee response? In the week when the European Union welcomed nearly two million refugees from Ukraine, do we also need to watch graphic footage of a young African being battered for climbing a European border fence? Yes, we do.

As Europe rediscovers compassion for refugees, we should watch this video on loop. It shows a defenceless young man in tattered clothes gingerly descending a six-metre fence. Waiting for him at the bottom are half a dozen Spanish border police, in helmets and body armour and wielding batons. The first blow is struck before he reaches the ground. The images that follow, of a crowd of uniformed white men viciously beating a black man, are all the more disturbing because they are so familiar.

Daniel Howden is managing director of Lighthouse Reports, an investigative non-profit newsroom covering migration, corruption and conflict that works with leading European media