A group of 62 Syrian refugees
including 25 minors arrived in Italy on Friday on a humanitarian
corridor from Lebanon.
The group arrived at Rome's Fiumicino airport on a flight from
Beirut, organised under the programme that since 2016 has
brought more than 2,700 refugees to Italy from the Land of the
Cedars alone.
A second group of 18 Syrian refugees is due to arrive from
Lebanese capital on Wednesday.
The Humanitarian Corridors initiative is promoted by the
Community of Saint Egidio, the Italian Federation of Evangelical
Churches, Caritas and the Waldensian Table, in cooperation with
the interior and foreign ministries and with the support of
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
Overall more than 6,700 refugees have arrived in Europe in
safety and dignity from Lebanon, Ethiopia, and other countries
of first asylum since the project started in the wake of the
migrant boat shipwrecks off Lampedusa of October 2013 in which
hundreds of refugees mostly from Eritrea and Syria died.
The new arrivals will be hosted by relatives already living in
Italy having arrived through earlier corridors, Italian families
and local associations, and will receive support with their
integration in Italy.
"The humanitarian corridors have today become peace corridors,"
said the Community of Saint Egidio President Marco Impagliazzo.
"These are people who have been freed not only from the war in
Syria, which is behind them, but also from the great
destabilisation of Lebanon where they have been living in
refugee camps for many years," he continued.
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