Day's outing for refugee children on World Refugee Day

A group of 36 refugee children were yesterday taken on a day's outing as part of the country's activities to mark World Refugee Day.

The children, from Sudan, Algeria, Palestine and Somalia, were in the morning taken to Popeye Village and treated to snacks provided by Consolidated Biscuits and Lawrence Quintano.

For lunch they were taken to Pizza Hut where they were visited by Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg, parliamentary secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and Emigrants Commission director Philip Calleja, who presented the children with McNeill satchels and books provided by Merlin Library.

The children were then taken to Eden Century Cinemas to watch the film Kangaroo Blue, made available by KRS.

Dr Borg said there were 560 people in detention who had not applied for refugee status or who were still waiting for their application to be processed. The backlog of applications, he said, hovered around 300. He said that as long as there were no new landings, they could be processed and brought up to date soon.

Asked what could be done to avoid the violent incidents seen last Tuesday at the Floriana detention centre, the minister said more space would be created if more applications were processed.

Once immigrants were given refugee status they were able to seek employment and given an allowance by the Social Policy Ministry until they found a job, he said.