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ČR plans to resettle 81 Syrian refugees from Turkey

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Prague, July 26 (CTK) – The Czech Republic will accept 81 Syrians from refugee camps in Turkey within the EU-Turkey deal on refugees, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Hana Mala told Tuesday’s issue of daily Lidove noviny (LN).

The mandatory quotas for the distribution of asylum seekers across the European Union approved last year have been strongly opposed by the four countries of the Visegrad Group (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic). Moreover, Prague has a reputation of not showing enough solidarity in a crisis. By accepting the Syrians, the Czech Republic would like to get rid of the unfavourable image of a country that foreigners want to avoid as much as possible, LN writes.

According to a report on migration that the government approved in June, the Syrian migrants should arrive in the country by the end of October, LN writes.

The information on the possible resettlement of Syrians from Turkish camps was first mentioned in May. A report worked out by the Interior Ministry then said 88 refugees would arrive.

Mala told LN that the Czech secret services are carrying out thourough security checks of the migrants who showed interest in the resettlement and whose list the country received from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) two weeks ago.

No official criteria for the selection of refugees seeking resettlement have been available. However, the Interior Ministry appreciated higher education and the readiness to integrate into the majority society last year. Religion plays no role at all, the paper writes.

It is unlikely that the Syrians from the refugee camps in Turkey, who have already been granted international refugee status, would fail in the admission procedure in the Czech Republic and be returned during the initial period of their stay in a Czech refugee facility, LN writes.

There is only a small Syrian community in the Czech Republic: 1116 Syrians had residence in the country and 505 of them had permanent residence at from the end of June. Popular members of the community are actress Martha Issova and Raduan Nwelati, mayor of Mlada Boleslav, central Bohemia, the paper writes.

The Czech branch of the Caritas organisation, which participates in the integration process of refugees, said it has no information on the date of the arrival of the Syrians from Turkey or their number.

“The procedure is always the same. If somebody shows interest in the state integration programme, we seek accommodation for them according to an individual plan, we assist in Czech language courses for them and in finding jobs. We cooperate with nonprofit organisations and municipalities in this,” Caritas secretary Jakub Licka told LN.

According to the deal that Brussels and Ankara made in March, EU countries will accept one migrant from Turkish refugee camps in exchange for the readmission of one refugee from Greek islands to Turkey. Over 800 refugees have been resettled in the EU within the plan so far.

Elsewhere in LN, Martin Zverina writes that the Czech public may become even more unwilling to accept foreigners from the Middle East if the government’s resettlement programme fails to be successful.

He says the failure of a previous programme for Iraqi Christian families organised by a Czech Christian group was unfortunate.

Originally, 153 refugees were to arrive, but the government cancelled the programme in the spring after more than a half of the 89 resettled Iraqis either decided to return home or moved to Germany.

Due to this, many Czechs consider the refugees ungrateful and self-seeking, Zverina says.

The Interior Ministry should carefully choose the Syrians for the resettlement programme. If would be of no help if the refugees only complained about the food and accommodation and then it would turn out that they have never actually wanted to live in the Czech Republic, he writes, referring to the previous project organised by the Generation 21 Endowment.

In 2015, the Czech government pledged to resettle 400 people from refugee camps in Jordan and Iraq in two years, but only 52 of them have arrived so far, LN writes.

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