Prague, Jan 24 (CTK) – The first group of ten Christian refugees from Iraq landed at Prague’s Vaclav Havel Airport this afternoon, Vojtech Jurasek, spokesman for the Generace 21 Endowment that participates in the resettlement, has told CTK.
He said the refugees will be taken later Saturday to the Okrouhlik recreational centre near Jihlava, south Moravia, where they will stay for several months.
Another group of about 20 people will arrive in the weeks to come.
The refugees come from the Mosul vicinity that has been occupied by Islamic State, from which they fled. The accepting of the refugees was approved by the Czech government in the middle of last December.
Tody’s group of ten people, half of whom are children, must settle some documents and then will be transported to Okrouhlik where they will spend two to three months.
They will be looked after by social workers and they will be learning Czech. Roughly from the latter half of the year, they will be able to move around the Czech Republic in search of work.
Originally, 30 people were to arrive, but administrative snags have complicated their journey.
“Lebanon has unexpectedly decided that it wants one more stamp, which we did not manage to do. It is but a bureaucratic problem,” Jan Talafa, Generace 21 director, said.
A total of 153 Christian refugees from Iraq are to arrive in the Czech Republic.
ms/dr
