UN to fly group of refugees to Ireland

A GROUP of Tanzania-based refugees are to be flown to Ireland over the next two months under a UN resettlement programme, the Department of Justice confirmed yesterday.

Minister for Integration Conor Lenihan and officials are to travel to the east African country next month to finalise details. The refugees’ country of origin or the numbers involved are not clear, but they are expected to arrive here within eight weeks.

The refugees will be selected for resettlement as part of a programme run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), under which Ireland receives up to 200 refugees each year. Ireland is one of 18 countries and one of only six EU member states which participate in the scheme.

Last year, the State accepted almost 100 refugees from Burma who had been living in camps on the border with Thailand for more than a decade. They were resettled in Co Mayo and given orientation classes before taking part in an integration programme co-ordinated by local service providers.

The UNHCR estimates that there were 435,600 refugees in Tanzania last year.

Of these, some 218,000 were Burundians who fled an internal conflict in 1972.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times