Lithuania accepts ten refugees under EU quota scheme

 

Ten refugees from Syria and Iraq arrived in Lithuania on Friday under EU quota scheme, Lithuanian Vice-Minister of the Interior Justas Pankauskas said.

“Ten people, two families, arrived in Lithuania from Greece early in the morning,” Pankauskas told the BNS news agency.

 

The families will be hosted at a refugee center in the Lithuanian central Jonava district municipality. Refugees are said to be able to move to other parts of the country after receiving required documents.

 

The first Iraqi family arrived in Lithuania in December, as a part of the deal to accept 1,105 refugees over two years under the EU mandatory quota scheme aimed at relocating 160,000 refugees among EU member states. Lithuania has previously accepted 49 refugees.

 

Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. The EU border agency Frontex recorded over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in the European Union in 2015.