On Friday 29 September 2016, Luxembourg welcomed an additional twenty-five Syrian refugees, 14 adults and 11 children; this is the second group of Syrian refugees to be resettled in the Grand Duchy under the agreement with Turkey signed on 18 March 2016.
Representatives of the Directorate of Immigration at the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Luxembourg Office for Reception and Integration (OLAI), under the Ministry of Family and Integration, met the families at Luxembourg airport.
The agreement concluded between the European Union (EU) and Turkey allowed for each Syrian readmitted by Turkey from the Greek islands, that another Syrian refugee from Turkey would be resettled to one of the EU Member States; a Luxembourg delegation visited Ankara in April to conduct meetings with refugees selected by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
The OLAI will handle the reception of these Syrian refugees, in collaboration with Lisko (Luxembourg Centre for integration and social cohesion), a mobile unit of the Red Cross, the Ministry of the Family and the integration; they will help such beneficiaries of international protection in their daily efforts to facilitate their integration into society.
Full refugee status, as provided by the Geneva Convention and the law of 18 December 2015 on international protection and temporary protection, will be awarded to those resettled.
