Italian church groups open refugee 'humanitarian corridor'
Source: Associated Press
Italian church groups open refugee 'humanitarian corridor'
Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
Updated 3:03 pm, Thursday, January 21, 2016
ROME (AP) — An Italian ecumenical mission is in Lebanon this week to work out the final details of a pilot project to bring up to 1,000 refugees to Italy on humanitarian visas so they're not tempted to risk deadly sea crossings to get to Europe.
The U.N. refugee agency has welcomed the initiative, one of many types of private sponsorships that are enabling particularly vulnerable or needy refugees to reach safety and start new lives in third countries.
In this case, the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy and the Rome-based Catholic Sant'Egidio Community teamed up to ask the Italian government to grant 1,000 humanitarian visas for refugees in camps in Lebanon, Morocco and Ethiopia.
The aim is to airlift an initial group of about 100 of the most vulnerable refugees —most of them Syrians who are sick, disabled or elderly, or women alone with young children — from a Lebanese camp by the end of the month or early February, said Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Sant'Egidio Community.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Italian-church-groups-open-refugee-humanitarian-6774013.php
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