Three months into the 2026 Iran-centred regional escalation, with major displacement impacts in Iran and Lebanon and knock-on effects across Afghanistan, the Gulf, and neighbouring corridors, this note follows MedMA’s earlier work on legal pathways to protection and applies that framework to a current, live crisis as its operating scenario.[1] The crisis provides a diagnostic moment to examine the distance between the EU’s legal pathway framework and its operational capacity. At the same time, it raises an urgent question: how prepared are we to activate it if conditions deteriorate further?
Patterns of (im)mobility
The crisis has generated a complex displacement picture, including internal displacement, cross-border movement, double displacement, and situations of immobility. These are dynamics that play out differently across the affected countries and should be understood in relation to one another. To date, these movements have remained predominantly regional, with EU arrival numbers staying low.
Internal Displacement
The numerically highest form of displacement documented since the beginning of hostilities has been internal. An estimated 3.2 million people were temporarily relocated within Iran,[2] while Lebanon has seen approximately 1.05 million people displaced within its borders.[3] These figures do not take into account the estimated 300,000 people who were already displaced in Lebanon as a result of Israeli mass evacuation orders before the onset of the current crisis.[4] Internally displaced persons may experience unstable conditions and may move again or their conditions may worsen at any time.
Cross-Border Movement
People have been moving across multiple corridors, in some cases in both directions simultaneously, indicating how complex the situation can be in terms of risks, options, and developments throughout the region.
By 19 May 2026, approximately 293,000 Iranians had crossed into neighbouring countries, while 252,900 had crossed back into Iran.[5] A further 11,800 Iranians moved towards Pakistan[6] and 34,900 into Armenia, with 33,700 crossing back from Armenia into Iran.[7] Bidirectional movement occurred along the Iran-Iraq corridor, with 271,751 people recorded moving from Iran into Iraq and 270,142 from Iraq into Iran between 1 and 30 April.[8] In addition, 81,291 Lebanese nationals have crossed from Lebanon into Syria since 2 March, bringing total cross-border movements from Lebanon into Syria across all nationalities to 448,582.[9]
Double Displacement
Another protection concern is the situation of refugees and asylum seekers already residing in Iran before the outbreak of hostilities. Prior to this conflict, Iran hosted approximately 1.65 million refugees, predominantly Afghans and Iraqis, many of whom have lived in the country for years or decades.[10] The onset of conflict has placed this population at risk of double displacement as they are forced to flee a country that was itself their initial place of refuge.[11]
For Afghan refugees in particular, the situation is especially precarious. Return to Afghanistan remains untenable for the majority, while access to protection in third countries is severely limited.[12] The scale of onward movement is significant: since the start of the crisis, 411,900 Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan, bringing total Afghan returns in 2026 to 678,500, 248,600 from Pakistan and 162,300 from Iran.[13] IOM data further records 358,496 people moving from Iran to Afghanistan and 141,023 from Afghanistan to Iran between 1 March and 18 May, illustrating the sustained and bidirectional nature of these flows.[14] UNHCR has warned that mass and hasty returns significantly heighten protection needs and risk further instability in Afghanistan and the region, including onward movement.[15] The same goes for Syrians. 367,291 Syrians, many of whom had been refugees in Lebanon, have returned to Syria, a country that remains far from stable and whose absorption capacity is severely constrained.[16]
Migrant Workers in Limbo
Lebanon, as well as some Gulf states, presents a distinct fourth case. Before the current crisis, a large and diverse migrant population already resided and worked in Lebanon, alongside Syrian and Palestinian refugees. According to IOM, in August 2025, 164,097 migrants were in Lebanon, of whom approximately 40% were of Ethiopian (65,575) and 9% of Sudanese nationality (14,854).[17] The onset of hostilities in 2026 has placed this population in an acutely vulnerable position. That can be attributed to the kafala system, under which migrant workers’ legal status is tied directly to their employer, effectively preventing departure or change of situation without the employer’s consent. As a result, some migrants have been forced to seek informal sanctuary in churches and other civilian spaces.[18]
The conflict has also affected migrant workers based in Gulf countries. The hospitality and energy sectors have been severely disrupted, and the widespread pay cuts and furloughs leave workers stranded, facing both an untenable present and unaffordable onward movement.[19]
Taken together, these four dynamics create a protection landscape characterised mainly by immobility and regional concentration. Most affected people remain within the region, constrained by conflict, legal status, labour regimes, or the lack of viable onward options. In practice, only a small share of those affected by the crisis would fall within the reach of existing EU legal pathways.
Humanitarian Situation and Access to Aid
In addition to the mobility consequences of the conflict, there are major barriers to the delivery of aid to affected populations.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the disruption of other key delivery routes have made the transfer of humanitarian supplies into the region difficult, affecting the ability of organisations to respond to the developing needs.[20][21] Food security has become an increasing concern throughout the region, with civilian populations, including those already displaced, experiencing acute shortages.
It should be noted that the international response has mobilised formal emergency frameworks. In Iran, UNHCR has launched a Flash Refugee Response Plan targeting 1.65 million Afghan and Iraqi refugees and others in need of international protection, alongside 1 million host community members. In Lebanon, a USD 308.3 million Flash Appeal aims to support 1 million people with lifesaving assistance and protection. Nine inter-agency partners are participating in the Iran response.[22] In Lebanon, UNHCR has been working alongside the Lebanese government to provide shelter, cash assistance, and core relief items to both Lebanese nationals and refugees.[23]
The humanitarian issues described above, combined with the economic pressures generated by the conflict, are reshaping migration dynamics and options. As resources diminish and legal routes become inaccessible, smuggling networks can function under increasingly exploitative conditions, leading people to undertake higher-risk journeys for lower costs. As a result, protection risks on already vulnerable routes are even more exacerbated.[24]
Policy Responses
Policy responses to the crisis have emerged across different levels, regional, European, and international.
Türkiye, as the primary destination for Iranians crossing an international border, has moved early to prepare contingency measures for potential large-scale arrivals from Iran.[25] The European response has been defined primarily by anticipatory border and migration management, with protection considerations playing a secondary role. The EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner has urged member states to accelerate preparations for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, framing the Middle East conflict explicitly as a reason to expedite implementation.[26] The four Mediterranean member states most directly affected by potential arrivals, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, and Malta, convened to coordinate their response, issuing a joint statement on migration management in the context of the Middle East conflict.[27] At the member state level, Denmark and Italy have jointly urged the EU Commission to scale up aid to the Middle East, framing such aid as a means of discouraging onward movement towards Europe.[28]
One area where protection response has been visible is in the temporary suspension of asylum returns to Iran by several European states. The approaches adopted have varied considerably. Norway has temporarily suspended the duty to return to Iran, the Netherlands has introduced a six-month moratorium on decisions and departures for Iranian nationals, and Belgium has temporarily suspended the processing of Iranian international protection applications.[29]
Legal Pathways as a Tool: Fit, Timing, and Preparedness
The displacement picture described above rises amid an ongoing discussion regarding safe and legal pathways to the EU.[30] The question addressed here is: what does the current emergency in the Middle East reveal about the usability of the existing tools? Are they fit for the scale, speed, and profile of such crises?
The Framework: on Paper and in Practice
Understanding what each instrument actually does, and what it cannot do, is essential to assessing the framework’s fit against the displacement picture documented above. The EU has been developing a framework for resettlement and humanitarian admission, most recently through Regulation (EU) 2024/1350, which represents the most significant attempt to systematise legal pathway tools at the EU level. The Regulation provides three main instruments: resettlement, humanitarian admission, and emergency admission, the latter defined as the admission of persons with urgent legal, physical, or medical protection needs (Article 2(4)). This represents the most agile provision in the framework and would appear applicable to the current emergency. To this day, however, there is no evidence that emergency admission under the Regulation has been activated in response to the Iran conflict by any EU member state. Even the EU’s mass influx instrument, the Temporary Protection Directive, requires physical presence at EU borders as a precondition for activation, a threshold the current displacement picture has not produced.
Resettlement is a durable solution. UNHCR identifies and refers refugees from a country of first asylum; the receiving state selects and grants permanent protection. It is lengthy by design (typically 12 to 24 months) and depends on functioning UNHCR infrastructure in the country of departure. Humanitarian admission is faster and more flexible. A state can act on its own initiative, without a UNHCR referral. The status granted is temporary rather than permanent. Finally, an emergency admission provision exists specifically for people with urgent legal, physical, or medical protection needs. In theory, this is the instrument most directly applicable to the current crisis.
The framework foresees Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission places to be pledged in 2-year cycles. The 2026-2027 Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission Plan, proposed in November 2025, committed 15,230 places across the two-year period, a drop of 75% from the 61,000 pledged for 2024-2025.[31] Nine member states participated, down from fourteen. Participation in the Union Plan is voluntary by design, and the Regulation imposes no admission obligation on member states, meaning the framework carries no floor when political will contracts. It should be noted that UNHCR had already identified Iran and Türkiye as among the top countries with the highest resettlement needs for 2026.[32]
Scope, Timing, and Operational Limitations
As far as the eligibility criteria are concerned, resettlement and humanitarian admission, by definition, apply to people who have crossed an international border and are present in a third country. The people who are internally displaced or physically or legally unable to move are entirely outside the scope of these instruments.
Another question the current crisis raises is timing. Activating emergency admission under the Regulation requires political will at the member state level, UNHCR referral capacity in the country of departure, and administrative infrastructure that takes time to mobilise. In a conflict that generated millions of displaced persons within days, none of these conditions could possibly be met in a timely manner. This stands in contrast to the logic of preparedness that the Regulation’s agility provisions were designed to enable.
This dimension also illustrates a gap between risk identification and operational capability. UNHCR had already identified Iran as well as the broader region among the highest resettlement-need contexts for 2026. The EUAA had described a large-scale Iranian refugee movement as a scenario that could generate displacement of “unprecedented magnitude.”[33]
Additionally, resettlement processing from Iran, already constrained by the previous collapse of the quota to zero, would face further logistical obstacles, since obtaining exit permits from Iran, Lebanon, and Pakistan has been a persistent challenge to refugee transfers even in non-conflict periods.[34] In the context of active hostilities, closed airspace, and disrupted infrastructure, these barriers are significantly compounded.
Conclusion
The current crisis illustrates three structural features of the current system. First, the planning cycles of existing tools do not correspond to the speed of acute displacement emergencies. Second, the populations most numerically significant in this crisis are precisely those the framework is not designed to reach, people trapped inside conflict zones, bound by labour regimes, or returning to countries that cannot absorb them. Third, the political conditions for the meaningful activation of legal pathways are weakest now that they are most needed: member-state pledges have declined, and the main framing of the crisis in Europe focuses on containment rather than protection. Even if a framework exists, preparedness, political commitment, and operational flexibility are the elements missing.
This discussion is urgent for reasons beyond the immediate crisis. First, when access to safe routes is unavailable, people move through more dangerous routes, under more exploitative conditions, at greater cost and personal risk. Second, the current ceasefire cannot be read as a resolution. The conditions that generate displacement remain largely present, and hostilities can resume with little warning. The question the current crisis poses for policymakers is therefore prospective as much as retrospective: whether the conditions for framework activation (political will, pledged places, operational infrastructure, and UNHCR capacity in countries of departure) can be built during a window of relative stability rather than sought in the midst of emergency.
To conclude, this framework is undeniably an improvement from the reliance on ad hoc responses. In the case of the current war, it would need rapid political activation, substantial pledges, and coordination with evacuation to have an effect. The conversation on legal pathways must therefore address how tools can be improved in design, how the conditions for their activation can be built in advance, institutionally, politically, and logistically. That conversation is urgent: the ceasefire may not hold, and the same framework is already under pressure from simultaneous crises, including in Sudan and Gaza.
[1]As of 3 June 2026, the situation remains volatile despite ceasefire announcements, with recurring security incidents and disruptions to civilian life.
[2]UNHCR, Middle East Situation Emergency Update, Weekly Update, 19 May 2026, available at: https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/middle_eastern
[3]Ibid.
[4]Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Lebanon: 300,000 already displaced as Israel issues mass evacuation orders, available at: https://www.nrc.no/news/2026/lebanon-300000-already-displaced-as-israel-issues-mass-evacuation-orders
[5]Middle East Situation Emergency Update, Weekly Update, 19 May 2026, available at: https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/middle_eastern
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid.
[8]IOM DTM, Escalation in the Middle East and Beyond- Mobility Report, data collection period 12-18 May 2026, publication date 21 May 2026. Figures cover 4 out of 12 border crossing points and the period 1-30 April 2026.
[9]UNHCR, Middle East Situation Emergency Update (Weekly Update, 19 May 2026). Total covers all nationalities crossing from Lebanon into Syria since 2 March 2026.
[10]Al Jazeera, Iran hosts 1.65 million refugees amid escalating conflict (2026).
[11]US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), Iran Situation Update, 7 April 2026.
[12]UNHCR Iran, Resettlement and Complementary Pathways, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/ir/resettlement/; UNHCR, Preliminary Summary and Inter-Agency Refugee Response Plan Requirements March-May 2026, 26 March 2026, available at: https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/irn
[13]UNHCR, Middle East Situation Emergency Update (Weekly Update, 19 May 2026).
[14]IOM DTM, Mobility Report, 21 May 2026. Cumulative figures, 1 March-18 May 2026.
[15]UNHCR, UNHCR mobilizing across region as Middle East crisis escalates, 4 March 2026, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing-notes/unhcr-mobilizing-across-region-middle-east-crisis-escalates
[16]UNHCR, Middle East Situation Emergency Update (Weekly Update, 19 May 2026).
[17]Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), Lebanon Migrant Population Data, citing IOM figures as of August 2025.
[18]Reuters, Refugees and migrants in Lebanon find rare sanctuary as Israeli strikes hit Beirut church, 7 March 2026, available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/refugees-migrants-lebanon-find-rare-sanctuary-israeli-strikes-beirut-church-2026-03-07/
[19]The New York Times, Dubai’s Migrant Workers Feel the Strain of the Iran War, 14 April 2026, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/world/middleeast/dubai-migrant-workers-war.html; Human Rights Watch, Gulf Countries: Conflict Hardships Leave Migrants in Limbo, 31 March 2026, available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/31/gulf-countries-conflict-hardships-leave-migrants-in-limbo
[20]United Nations News, Strait of Hormuz closure compounds humanitarian access challenges, April 2026, available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/04/1167311; Humanitarian Action, Escalation in the Middle East and Beyond: Crisis Overview, available at: https://humanitarianaction.info/document/escalation-middle-east-and-beyond-humanitarian-response/article/crisis-overview-2
[21]Reuters, Iran war complicates WHO’s emergency medical supply routes, 26 March 2026, available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-war-complicates-whos-emergency-medical-supply-routes-2026-03-26/
[22]UNHCR, Flash Refugee Response Plan Iran; UNHCR, Lebanon Flash Appeal (USD 308.3 million), March 2026, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/middle-east-emergency
[23]UNHCR, Middle East Situation-Lebanon Flash Update, 7-19 April 2026, available at: https://reliefweb.int/report/lebanon/middle-east-situation-lebanon-flash-update-7-13-19-april-2026
[24]Mixed Migration Centre (MMC), Regional Analysis: Displacement and Smuggling Dynamics (2026).
[25]Reuters, Turkey has prepared plans for possible migrant flow from Iran, minister says, 4 March 2026, available at: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-has-prepared-plans-possible-migrant-flow-iran-minister-says-2026-03-04/
[26]Euractiv, EU urges countries to prepare for security threats from Middle East, 2026, available at: https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-urges-countries-to-prepare-for-security-threats-from-middle-east/
[27]Government of Italy, Joint Press Statement on the Meeting of the Leaders of Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta on Migration Issues in Relation to the Conflict in the Middle East, available at: https://www.governo.it/en/articolo/joint-press-statement-meeting-leaders-cyprus-greece-italy-and-malta-migration-issues
[28]InfoMigrants, Denmark, Italy urge EU to provide aid and prepare for migrant arrivals amid Iran war, 2026, available at: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/70472/denmark-italy-urge-eu-to-provide-aid-and-prepare-for-migrant-arrivals-amid-iran-war
[29]UDI & UNE, UDI and UNE suspend the duty to return to Iran, 22 January 2026, available at: https://www.udi.no/en/latest/udi-and-une-suspend-the-duty-to-return-to-iran/; IND, No decisions on asylum applications from Iranian nationals, 24 March 2026, available at: https://ind.nl/en/news/no-decisions-on-asylum-applications-from-iranian-nationals; CGRS/EMN Belgium, Processing of Iranian applications for international protection is temporarily suspended in Belgium, 14 January 2026, available at: https://emnbelgium.be/news/processing-iranian-applications-international-protection-temporarily-suspended-belgium
[30]MedMA, Providing Pathways to Protection: Exchange of Expertise Between Greece and Norway, Policy Report, 2025, available at: https://med-ma.eu/publications/policy-report-providing-pathways-to-protection/
[31]International Rescue Committee, IRC warns of ‘catastrophic’ 75% drop in EU refugee resettlement and humanitarian admission pledges for 2026, 13 November 2025, available at: https://www.rescue.org/eu/press-release/irc-warns-catastrophic-75-drop-eu-refugee-resettlement-and-humanitarian-admission
[32]UNHCR, Projected Global Resettlement Needs 2026, cited in European Commission, Union Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission Plan 2026-2027, November 2025, available at: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/document/download/f625ec83-7151-4d08-a964-14e304159326_en
[33]European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), Asylum Report 2025, available at: https://www.euaa.europa.eu/asylum-report-2025; specifically the Harmonised Approach for Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission, available at: https://www.euaa.europa.eu/asylum-report-2025-executive-summary/harmonised-approach-resettlement-and-humanitarian-admission
[34]UNHCR Iran, Resettlement and Complementary Pathways, available at: https://www.unhcr.org/ir/resettlement/; European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), Harmonised Approach for Resettlement and Humanitarian Admission, Asylum Report 2025, available at: https://www.euaa.europa.eu/asylum-report-2025-executive-summary/harmonised-approach-resettlement-and-humanitarian-admission