A+ A-

Italy's Boldrini calls for collective effort to help refugees

By Mahdi Al-Nimr

ROME, April 28 (KUNA) -- President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini said the international community should shoulder its legal and moral responsibility for resolving the current conflicts in several parts of the world particularly in the Middle East.
The settlement of the current disputes is the key to finding radical solutions to the related problems such as displacement and illegal immigration which leads to recurrent mass drowning of immigrants, she said in a statement to KUNA.
Referring to the five shipwrecks in the Mediterranean this month which left a combined death toll of 1,200 people, she said these tragedies are only the tip of the iceberg of long chronicle of tragedies suffered by the illegal immigrants in their countries.
Boldrini, who once served as spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), attributed the tragedies to escalating conflicts in such countries as Syria Iraq and Libya, and the faltering ability of the international aid agencies to meet the needs of refugees.
Four years of civil war in Syria resulted in more than 200,000 deaths and six million internally-displaced people and refugees in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, she noted.
The refugees added burdens on the economies of the host countries, she said, wondering how a small country such as Lebanon can accommodate 1.5 million Syrian refugees.
The impact of this number of refugees on Lebanon equals the impact of 17 million refugees on a bigger country such as Italy, which is unimaginable, she went on.
Reacting to the simmering controversy in Italy over the arrivals of illegal immigrants, she said "we cannot deal this phenomenon through a selfish approach," urging the other EU countries to shoulder their respective humanitarian responsibilities in this regard.
The second article of the EU treaty stipulates respect for the basic human rights, Boldrini reminded, adding that the situation in the Mediterranean Sea casts doubt on the Europe's status as the world's last bastion of human rights.
On the Kuwaiti-Italian parliamentary ties, she highlighted the importance of parliamentary diplomacy in cementing the people-to-people relationship.
Recalling her meeting with Kuwait National Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim on November 27 in Rome, she said she was looking forward to more contacts with the Arab top lawmakers with a view to mulling ways for backing up the nascent democracies.
She added that the Italian parliament is ready to share experience with the Arab and GCC parliaments in order to promote democratization, noting that she signed a number of agreements and protocols with Tunisia in this connection. (end) mn.gb