28 December 2007, 15:19
150 residents of Chechnya in inhuman conditions wait for political shelter in France
For the fourth day already, at the Paris airport, 150 applicants for refuge from Chechnya stay in the conditions not fit for residence of such a large group of people for so long.
In France, the procedure of granting a refuge is arranged as follows: a refuge should be applied for at the police post of the airport, and if the applicant has no Schengen visa, he or she is sent to the lounge of the airport. An officer of the French Bureau for Defence of Refugees and Stateless Persons arrives to the lounge to interview the applicant and decide whether the person is eligible to continue the procedure of granting refuge in France. If the waiting time is too long, the applicant is sent to the tribunal, where a decision is made to release him or her.
However, after December 23, the number of applicants for refuge has sharply exceeded the usual figure, because of arrival of a huge number of applicants from Chechnya. The lounge of the Charles de Gaulle Airport is overcrowded. Therefore, the people were placed into police posts, not adapted to long stay of people.
As a result, the visitors from Chechnya found themselves in catastrophically heavy conditions for living. The Chechnya Committee of Paris has stated that 15 persons are kept in a room of nine square meters. They have no place where to sleep, and no interpreter. At distribution, many family members appeared in different posts. The only thing that Paris police could do, was placing women and children into the lounge more adapted to accommodate people.
The French organizations ANAFE, Amnesty International and Chechnya Committee have sent a description of the situation to the Ministry for Migration asking the Ministry to react as quickly as possible, however, nobody knows when these people from Chechnya could receive any help.
