Prague, July 26 (CTK) – The Czech Republic will resettle ten refugees from Greece within the quotas for the distribution of asylum seekers across the European Union, and the three families have already passed the security checks, according to a report that the cabinet will deal with on Wednesday.
The date of the arrival of the refugees has not yet been set, according to the Interior Ministry’s report available to CTK.
In February, resettlement to the Czech Republic was offered to 20 refugees from Greece, but Czech authorities refused to admit 13 of them after the security screening.
Three of the seven other refugees left the facility where they were waiting for resettlement. The four remaining Syrians arrived in the country in late April.
Resettlement was also offered to ten refugees staying in Italy.
Prague said now it would admit further ten refugees from Greece and from Italy. Unlike Greece, Italy has not reacted to the offer so far.
According to the ministry’s report, the resettlement of refugees from the above two countries has been stagnating and is very slow.
The EU member countries offered to admit 7500 refugees, but only about 2200 of them have been resettled so far.
Czech security services are also screening 81 Syrian refugees who are staying in camps in Turkey. The decision on their resettlement will made based on results of the security screening.
By the end of 2017, the Czech Republic should admit 2691 refugees from the Middle East. The country first voluntarily pledged to resettle 1100 refugees from Greece and Italy. Then the EU agreed on the admission of further 1591 refugees, although the Czech Republic was one of the countries that voted against the extension of the resettlement programmes.
Daily Lidove noviny (LN) wrote on Tuesday that the Czech Republic also planned to admit 81 asylum seekers from Turkey, within the EU-Turkey migration deal.
