27 Syrian refugees, including 14 adults and 13 children, were received in Luxembourg on 25 and 27 May 2016 as part of the EU-Turkey agreement.
The agreement of 18 March 2016 provided for the resettlement of one Syrian person from Turkey in one of the EU Member States for each Syrian refugee readmitted by Turkey from the Greek islands. In April 2016, a Luxembourg delegation visited Ankara to conduct interviews with refugees selected by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
The 14 adults and 13 children constitute the first Syrian refugees residing in Turkey to be resettled in the country under the agreement.
Representatives of the Directorate of Immigration, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Luxembourg Office for Reception and Integration (OLAI) welcomed the families at the airport.
OLAI will handle the reception of the group, in collaboration with the Luxembourg Centre for Integration and Social Cohesion (Lisko), a mobile unit of the Red Cross subsidised by the Ministry of Family and Integration, which will be supporting the refugees to facilitate their integration into society.
Luxembourg resettled 28 Syrian refugees from Jordan in 2014 and 46 Syrian refugees from Turkey in 2015. Following the UNHCR's appeal at the Geneva conference on 30 March 2016, Luxembourg pledged to resettle 50 Syrian refugees in need of international protection.
To do this, a delegation from the Directorate of Immigration, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs will visit Turkey during the coming months to conduct interviews and analyse files with people who could be resettled in Luxembourg.
Refugee status, as provided by the Geneva Convention and the law of 18 December 2015 on international protection and temporary protection will be awarded to those resettled.
