There are many technical issues related to this problem. From getting the data to understanding real
motives and knowing what constraints limit their movement.

There are two types of data that the main data provider for this work, the United Nations Higher
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):

• Aggregate yearly datasets on number of people divided by major refugee status types
• High granularity, potentially weekly data, reported by the UNHCR camp management sites in the
  adjacent countries to the Syrian conflict (Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Egypt)

Data available in UNHCR camp directorates are not in the same format. First, getting data from UNHCR is
not easy since their data is saved in PDF formats and we’ve been trying to contact them directly to get
better data. Also, each country collect data in their own way. Some collect granular data up to the
individuals. While others just collect data for camps or for cities.

Different namings for refugees exist in different jurisdictions. In neighboring countries of Syria, since it is administrated by UNHCR, refugees are similar in status, but upon going to Europe they are called asylum
seeker which seems to differ from country to country.

The other challenging part of our project is choosing and applying and perhaps modifying the right
mathematical migration model. There are many different ways to model human migration, and each has
it’s own pros and cons. We will be sampling the most important of these in the literature review section
of this proposal.