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NEEDS HELP: Norway will remove 50 asylum seekers from Moria camp. Food was distributed near the burning camp on Thursday.
The fifty people who will be brought to Norway from Greece will be Syrian families with children. Norway receives less than half that of Finland, and only a tenth of the amount that Portugal will receive.
Yesterday morning, VG was able to confirm that Norway is picking up 50 asylum seekers from Greece. The news broke a few days after KrF leader Kjell Ingolf Ropstad came out on VG and promised that Norway would soon be ready to pick up unaccompanied minors and families with children from the Moria camp.
But when the relocation became known on the same day as the great fire at Moria camp, the mood quickly turned to criticism from SV and MDG, among others, that Norway did too little too late.
See the images of the drama: So they escaped the flames
The FRP was also critical, but for an entirely different reason: the party warned that Norway would bring Afghan men without the need for protection in Norway.
SECRETARY OF STATE: Hilde Barstad (H) Photo: Ministry of Justice
May be in another place
Now Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice, Hilde Barstad (H) rejects both:
– We have instructed the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) to start relocating 50 people in collaboration with the Greek authorities. We have notified that there will be vulnerable families with children from Syria, Barstad tells VG.
– For us it is important that those who move from Greece to here are people in whom the clear starting point is that they have a supposed need for protection, he continues.
Barstad says there may be refugees who are now elsewhere in Greece than Lesbos, where the Moria camp is located.
– Greek authorities have relocated 7000 people from Lesbos to the mainland in the last six months, and now more people are moving. That is why we will not deny that it may be relevant to accept people from Moria who have already moved. We are helping the Greek authorities according to what they have requested.
ALSO READ: Aid workers in Lesbos sound the disaster alarm: – There is no solution, there is no plan
HOMELESS: Between 4000-7000 children live in Moria. Now they have lost their home.
Germany takes more
She says that Norway monitors which other countries are involved in the same initiative and how many people are actually relocating to these countries. Norway comes out above countries like Belgium and Ireland, but below countries like Finland and Portugal. Germany clearly takes the biggest share (see the list below).
– When you look at the large number of other countries and the magnitude of the problem in Moria, do you understand that some people think it takes too few?
– It has been important for Norway to see this in light of the number of people living in Norway and that the burden-sharing between European countries is fair.
– But Finland is comparable to Norway, and do they accept more than double?
– I find that 50 is a good contribution. Norway has also given Greece NOK 600 million in support to build a reception center for vulnerable families who may be relocated from, among other places, Moria.
VG is informed that the Ministry of Justice has the following figures on how many have been promised to be collected and how many relocations have been carried out:
Germany: 920 (136 completed)
Portugal: 500 (25 completed)
France: 350 (50 scheduled)
Finland: 120 (24 completed)
Bulgaria: 50 (none completed)
Ireland: 36 (8 completed)
Belgium: 18 (18 completed)
Luxembourg: 12 (12 completed)
Slovenia: 4 (none completed)
Lithuania: 2 (none completed)
