Humanitarian Corridors: Further group of refugees arrives in Rome

A group of Syrian refugees were welcomed at Rome’s Fiumicino airport on Tuesday as part of a humanitarian corridors programme.

The initiative is being promoted by the Community of Sant’ Egidio and aided by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior.

The refugees were welcomed on Tuesday morning by Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Sant’Egidio community, Luca Maria Negro, president of the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy and the deputy minister of the Italian Department of Foreign Affairs, Mario Giro.

The humanitarian corridors initiative, a reception programme for vulnerable migrants, was launched two years ago in Italy.

The initiative was in response to scores of people making the perilous journey from their countries of origin and often dying in the Mediterranean Sea.

Brother and sister Nawraz and Kifah flew into Rome via Lebanon on Tuesday with their mother Salwa. They spoke to Vatican Radio Italy’s, Francesca Sabatinelli about what they left behind in their home country of Syria.

Nawraz said, he and the rest of his family had to flee the conflict in Damascus while his sister Kifah added that “there is no place in Syria today that is away from terrorism, you know it’s surrounded with terrorism and violence”.

Kifah said they heard about the Community of Sant’ Egidio while in Lebanon and got in touch with them. Nawraz noted that, “living in Lebanon is very difficult for Syrians; lots of problems and difficult conditions.”

Kifah said that the people who have fled to Lebanon and the people at Fiumicino who have been welcomed to Rome are “victims of terrorism, victims of violence and also victims of the whole world neglecting their case, the Syrian conflict.”