Faroes can host 200 refugees

The Faroese government last week arrived at a provisional capacity figure of 200 refugees.

“At a government meeting on 15 March, there seemed to be provisional agreement on taking in 200 refugees,” foreign minister Jenis av Rana said on the KVF radio news on Friday.

This number is in line with the 20,000 quota specified in a new Danish Emergency Act on asylum for refugees, he adds.

A Faroese version of this act is expected to be debated in the Faroese Parliament this week.

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The minister says he is pleased to see cross-party agreement on hosting refugees in the Faroes.

“Prior to the crisis in Ukraine, there had been some disagreement on whether we should accept refugees at all, but now we saw a sudden and overwhelming change of opinion across the board,” he says.

“Initially, the plan is that all the refugees will come from Ukraine, but we would of course not reject people coming from other countries struck by humanitarian crises.”

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Norway is expected to take in some 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and Sweden about 75,000.

The Nordic Council has invited foreign ministers across the Nordic region to a meeting in Sweden this week in an effort to coordinate the Nordic refugee effort.

“This is the first time we take in refugees in the Faroe Islands, so it is important for us to learn as much as possible from the experiences of our neighbouring countries,” says the Faroese Minister of Foreign Affairs.

More Faroese News in English.