Jihlava, South Moravia, Jan 14 (CTK) – The first 27 Christian refugees from Iraq will arrive in Prague on January 24 and they will move to a recreational centre near Jihlava where they will live together and learn Czech several weeks, Generation 21 Foundation head Jan Talafant said yesterday.
“The refugees will seek asylum on arrival. The asylum should be granted to them relatively fast since they underwent security vettings of secret services and interviews with Czech state authorities before their arrival,” Talafant said.
The Czech government approved the plan to accept the refugees in December. Generation 21 Foundation initiated their arrival and it will assist in their integration into Czech society.
The first group comprises of six families. The average age of these refugees is 20, with the oldest person being 68 years old and the youngest baby being one month old.
“We hope that we will warmly welcome these people, who have lost all their property and often also their family members, and that we will help them start anew,” Jihlava Mayor Rudolf Chloupek said last week.
Within the Generation 21 project, 37 Christian families, or 153 refugees, are to move to the Czech Republic. Most of them have been granted the international refugee status. The rest of the Iraqi Christians are to come in February and March.
Talafant said half of the men had university or higher education, as well as one third of the women in the group.
Before they were forced to leave their homes, they were regular middle-class families.
From the Okrouhlik recreational centre, the refugees would live in flats in Jihlava for several months. Then they may either decide to stay or move to places where they find jobs, Talafant said.
Generation 21 started registering job offers for the refugees, he said.
The refugees include a former schoolmaster, an IT specialist, a doctor, a nurse and a construction engineer, he added.
Generation 21 organises the transport of the refugees along with the Interior Ministry and the Czech intelligence services. The whole project will cost 15 million crowns and all the money comes from private donors. The foundation will cover the costs of living and of the integration and language courses for the first 12 month of the refugees’ stay.
Last year, the Czech government decided that the country will accept a total of 1500 refugees until the end of 2017.
Out of them 1100 refugees should be taken over from the EU countries faced with a pressure of migrants, which is Italy and Greece, and another 400 from the Middle East refugee camps.
In addition, the Czech Republic should accept another 1591 migrants based on the EU-approved quotas.
All the refugees will have to be granted asylum and pass a security screening first.
In 2015, three Syrian families arrived in the Czech Republic with children that would be treated in local hospitals. One of the families left for Germany shortly after its arrival.
($1=24.983 crowns)
