First asylum seekers leave Italy under European Union relocation plan
The scheme follows months of tensions over the more than 600,000 people who have flooded into Europe this year
Migrants walk as they cross the border from Hungary to Nickelsdorf, Austria, September 26, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS
ROME:
A small group of Eritreans left Italy for Sweden on Friday, the first contingent of asylum-seekers to be relocated under a European Union scheme to ease the burden of the migration crisis on frontline countries.
Grinning shyly before the media, 19 young Eritreans -- five women and 14 men -- waved and blew kisses as they boarded a small propeller plane at Rome's Ciampino airport after hugging members of the Red Cross and UN Refugee agency goodbye.
"Today is an important day for the European Union, it is a day of victory... for those who believe in Europe, for those who believed in saving human lives," Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told journalists after the departure.
Read: EU to speed up deportations to tackle migrant crisis
"It is a defeat for those who claim it is better for the Mediterranean to become a lake of death... and believe that scaring the European people is the way forward," he added.
The scheme follows months of tensions over the more than 600,000 people who have flooded into Europe this year.
EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Luxembourg minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, were in Rome to launch the scheme to relocate 160,000 people from Italy and Greece to other member states in the 28-nation bloc over the next two years.
The plan, which hopes to help ease the bloc's worst migration crisis since World War II, was only given the green light after Brussels flatly overruled stiff opposition from Eastern European nations.
"This is a tangible example of what we can do when we work together. We are nations of immigrants and we've made an important step forwards," Avramopoulos said, adding that it showed "Italy is not alone".
Alfano said Italy was ready to relocate 100 more asylum-seekers who would go to Germany and the Netherlands, and the UNHCR said further relocations would take place from Italy at the beginning of next week.
"This is a significant day, a positive and important one," the UN refugee agency's southern Europe spokeswoman, Carlotta Sami, told AFP.
"But we know more must be done. There is a great need for measures to be put in place to allow (asylum-seekers) to arrive in Europe safely," she said, referring to perilous boat crossings in the Mediterranean which have cost over 3,000 people their lives this year alone.
The Eritreans had been rescued on the high seas over the past few weeks and taken to an experimental migrant screening centre or "hotspot" on Lampedusa island, where they were registered.
Read: Rejected in EU, asylum seekers can face years of deadlock
Avramopoulos and Asselborn were expected to travel to the Italian island later Friday to examine the centre, a prototype for several set to open at the end of November across Italy and Greece.
On Thursday, EU nations agreed to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers and crack down on so-called "economic migrants" -- who are largely from poor African nations and not refugees from conflict zones.
A UN report in June detailed how the Horn of Africa nation, under Isaias Afwerki's iron-fisted regime for the past 22 years, has created a repressive system in which people are routinely arrested on a whim, detained, tortured, killed or disappeared.
The EU hopes the closed centres will sharply reducing the number of people who arrive by boat, refuse to be identified and head off across the borders to other bloc countries to seek a new life.
The centres and relocations are part of a multi-point plan which includes a military anti-people trafficker operation.
The UN's Security Council is set to vote Friday on a draft resolution to authorise military action against smugglers with Operation Sophia, which launched this week to seize traffickers' boats in international waters.
While the vote is not necessary for the EU to take action, the measure would legitimise plans under which European warships will board ships for inspection, confiscate them and even dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers.
A small group of Eritreans left Italy for Sweden on Friday, the first contingent of asylum-seekers to be relocated under a European Union scheme to ease the burden of the migration crisis on frontline countries.
Grinning shyly before the media, 19 young Eritreans -- five women and 14 men -- waved and blew kisses as they boarded a small propeller plane at Rome's Ciampino airport after hugging members of the Red Cross and UN Refugee agency goodbye.
"Today is an important day for the European Union, it is a day of victory... for those who believe in Europe, for those who believed in saving human lives," Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told journalists after the departure.
Read: EU to speed up deportations to tackle migrant crisis
"It is a defeat for those who claim it is better for the Mediterranean to become a lake of death... and believe that scaring the European people is the way forward," he added.
The scheme follows months of tensions over the more than 600,000 people who have flooded into Europe this year.
EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Luxembourg minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, were in Rome to launch the scheme to relocate 160,000 people from Italy and Greece to other member states in the 28-nation bloc over the next two years.
The plan, which hopes to help ease the bloc's worst migration crisis since World War II, was only given the green light after Brussels flatly overruled stiff opposition from Eastern European nations.
"This is a tangible example of what we can do when we work together. We are nations of immigrants and we've made an important step forwards," Avramopoulos said, adding that it showed "Italy is not alone".
Alfano said Italy was ready to relocate 100 more asylum-seekers who would go to Germany and the Netherlands, and the UNHCR said further relocations would take place from Italy at the beginning of next week.
"This is a significant day, a positive and important one," the UN refugee agency's southern Europe spokeswoman, Carlotta Sami, told AFP.
"But we know more must be done. There is a great need for measures to be put in place to allow (asylum-seekers) to arrive in Europe safely," she said, referring to perilous boat crossings in the Mediterranean which have cost over 3,000 people their lives this year alone.
The Eritreans had been rescued on the high seas over the past few weeks and taken to an experimental migrant screening centre or "hotspot" on Lampedusa island, where they were registered.
Read: Rejected in EU, asylum seekers can face years of deadlock
Avramopoulos and Asselborn were expected to travel to the Italian island later Friday to examine the centre, a prototype for several set to open at the end of November across Italy and Greece.
On Thursday, EU nations agreed to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers and crack down on so-called "economic migrants" -- who are largely from poor African nations and not refugees from conflict zones.
A UN report in June detailed how the Horn of Africa nation, under Isaias Afwerki's iron-fisted regime for the past 22 years, has created a repressive system in which people are routinely arrested on a whim, detained, tortured, killed or disappeared.
The EU hopes the closed centres will sharply reducing the number of people who arrive by boat, refuse to be identified and head off across the borders to other bloc countries to seek a new life.
The centres and relocations are part of a multi-point plan which includes a military anti-people trafficker operation.
The UN's Security Council is set to vote Friday on a draft resolution to authorise military action against smugglers with Operation Sophia, which launched this week to seize traffickers' boats in international waters.
While the vote is not necessary for the EU to take action, the measure would legitimise plans under which European warships will board ships for inspection, confiscate them and even dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers.