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The city of Bern wants to host 20 refugees from Moria, not everyone is happy
After the great fire in the Moria refugee camp, the city of Bern wants to host 20 refugees. For the SVP president of Berne, this is a “cheap election campaign stunt”.
After the fires in the Moria refugee camp, the city of Bern wants to host 20 refugees. This is announced by the city council in a press release. The local council was shocked by the fires, it said in the letter.
They are convinced that Switzerland must “provide support quickly”. The municipal council asks the federal authorities to host the Moria refugees in Switzerland “beyond existing obligations”. The municipal council is ready to host 20 refugees in a first step.
Refugee camp on fire
Video: Watson
The population and policy makers in many cities are convinced that “Switzerland can do more against the humanitarian crisis at the borders of Europe”.
“Cheap Election Campaign Trick”
Thomas Fuchs, president of the SVP Bern, views the municipal council’s decision with “mixed feelings,” as he says when asked by Watson. The people of Moria are certainly not doing well, says Fuchs, “but Europe has to solve the problem, not the city of Bern.”
Fuchs points out that there are financial problems in the city of Bern itself. The evacuation of 20 refugees is not “practical” either. “I don’t know how to do that. Does the city of Bern want to send a helicopter to Lesbos?”
Thomas Fuchs considers evacuation “impractical”. Photo: trapezoidal
Fuchs suspects that the Bern city government made the decision for tactical reasons. “To me, that’s a cheap campaign stunt,” Fuchs said. The elections will be held in the city of Bern at the end of November.
The Federal Council decides
In any case, the city of Bern will hardly “send a helicopter to Lesbos” on its own initiative. “The Federal Council decides on the admission of migrants within the framework of a quota,” says Emmanuelle Jaquet von Sury, press spokeswoman for the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), upon request.
A number of legal and financial issues arose that would affect the cantons as well, said Jacquet von Sury. “This decision would definitely have to be discussed with the cantons.”
The councilor of Bern, Franziska Teuscher, knows it too. Such a decision could only be made by the federal government, the Greens write. “Therefore, we have repeatedly approached them in recent years and asked them to pass resolutions.” The last time the eight largest cities in Switzerland turned to the Federal Council in June with concerns of the direct admission of more refugees from Lesbos.
Berne Councilor Franziska Teuscher: “Action is the order of the day with this human misery in Greece.” Photo: trapezoidal
As soon as the federal government gives the go-ahead, the refugees will be “housed in the structures we have for this purpose,” continues Teuscher. These are currently not being used 100 percent.
No casualties
According to the government of Athens, no one died in the great fire in the Moria refugee camp.
The fire broke out Tuesday night during protests by migrants who did not want to isolate themselves after testing positive for the coronavirus, he said.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis criticized the “attitude of some migrants” who had put up all the fire signs and then prevented firefighters from putting out the great fire. “There can be no excuses for backlash due to health checks,” he said in view of the corona cases and the corresponding tests at the camp.
Criticizes the attitude of some immigrants: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Image: sda
Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos announced that the number of people made homeless by the fire will be announced after an inspection that has already started in Lesbos.
Moria was the largest refugee camp in Greece and Europe. It had been hopelessly overcrowded for years; more recently, according to the Greek Ministry of Migration, around 12,600 refugees and migrants lived there, with a capacity of only 2,800 places.
With material from (sda / dpa)
