Iraqi Christians in Czechia ask to be sent back home

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Protesters show their solidarity with migrants detained in Czech refugee detention centres in Prague last November. The Czech government had backed a scheme run by church groups to resettle Christians driven from their homes by extremist organisations like Islamic State. Photograph: Michal Cizek/AFP/Getty Images
Protesters show their solidarity with migrants detained in Czech refugee detention centres in Prague last November. The Czech government had backed a scheme run by church groups to resettle Christians driven from their homes by extremist organisations like Islamic State. Photograph: Michal Cizek/AFP/Getty Images

Sixteen Iraqi Christians in the Czech Republic ( Czechia) on Tuesday asked to be sent back home after a failed bid to move to Germany, Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said.

“They probably realized they would have to stay in the Czech Republic, given the limited possibilities of moving elsewhere,” Chovanec said on public television.

“If I were fleeing a war-stricken country, I’d be grateful to whatever country offered me assistance and I wouldn’t look to leave it a few days or weeks later,” he added on CT 24 television.

The Iraqis, who are now staying at a center in the eastern village of Zastavka, were detained on Thursday near the German border.

The group had come to the EU member under a government program to resettle 130 Christians from Iraq’s Kurdistan region and 23 Iraqi refugees from Lebanon.

But earlier this month the Czech government abandoned the program co-organised with the Generace 21 charity fund after many decided to request German asylum.

“It’s impossible to support a project which doesn’t meet its goals,” Chovanec said at the time.

The Czech Republic should not be “mistaken for a travel agency”.

AFP

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6 responses to “Iraqi Christians in Czechia ask to be sent back home”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar
    5thDrawer

    Could have started an ‘In-Camp Business’ instead … something made from recycled water-bottles, perhaps.
    One needs to admit that ‘free camps’ can be a little boring if there’s nothing to do in them.

    1. Roger Patino Avatar
      Roger Patino

      Apparently boredom is worse than death to these people.

      1. Hind Abyad Avatar
        Hind Abyad

        They took Iraqi Christians because they are Orthodox like them..but the Iraq families want to go back home..say czech are like Moslems

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Nice to be a tourist there, maybe … but I would want to move in either.
          Refugees, being all in the same boat, probably got along together fairly well when ‘on the road’, and helped each other when it was needed. But once ‘settled’ in a camp, the differences begin to show again. They separate into little ghettos in a camp, the same as in the cities. And the ‘laws’ or ‘customary rules’ of each country are different as well. Some more strict on the concepts of that sought-for freedom. Going ‘home’ where the ‘customs’ are understood is possibly seen as better, even if bullets are flying back there. At either end of the journey there is no work to do and little to build for, when it was not an ‘Emigrating Plan’ with a job or a clear ‘new-dream’ future for the other end.
          And one should realize the need to ‘assimilate’ to grow into another culture, while accepting that it was one’s own decision to make the jump. There are, after all, consequences for everything we make a decision on in life.
          Tragedy is when a war pushes people into making bad decisions on which path to take.

          1. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Only the Powerful created Wars. Wars are conquering and looting.

  2. Protesters show their solidarity with migrants, they are rather stupid people whose main aim is not to make life easier for migrants, but to make life more difficult for the authorities in whole EU.

    Like the two cases with the leaflets which spread (in Arabic ….) at the border with Macedonia (Idomeni), which promised free way to Germany…..
    Everywhere when the police, border officials are trying to manage the situation you will find the so called ‘pro-migrant’ volunteers who are stoking up all this trouble by encouraging migrants to riot and generally make nuisances of themselves are not helping their own cause.

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