Most refugees have no plans to return home
Only 118 refugees out of 800 spoke of their desire to return home – as informed by Mohamed Refaat, a senior operations co-ordinator of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), after the organisation’s visit to the Bruzgi transport and logistics centre
The IOM delegation aimed to register migrants for participation in a programme envisaging voluntary return to their homeland and reintegration.
“We think they will be able to return home within 2-3 days – or 4 days at the farthest. We do not know yet whether this will be organised by charter or commercial flights,” Mr. Refaat said.
According to the IOM representative, the registered refugees want to return mostly to Iraq, though there are also those who wish to return to Iran and Turkey. “Since December 4th, we have sent home 36 people who wanted to return. Thanks to our national partners, we arranged an information desk at the airport and, out of those 36 people, thirty-two received information at this desk,” he added.
In his talk to journalists, Mr. Refaat noted that the IOM cannot help refugees get to the European Union since ‘this is a political issue’.
“As for the reunion of families who stay in different countries, we are also dealing with this issue. This is one of the solutions that we have proposed. However, this process requires involvement of several organisations, including other UN agencies and the Red Cross. This process is not as fast as we would like," Mr. Refaat added.
