Sudan: Denmark to Resettle Refugees

[Marcus Marulus]

Sudan: Denmark to Resettle Refugees

3 September 2007

Posted to the web 4 September 2007

Geresom Musamali

Kampala

One hundred Sudanese and Congolese refugees who have been living in Uganda are to be resettled permanently in Denmark.

"Denmark has an international obligation to take on some of the most vulnerable refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) determines the criteria for selection," Danish minister for refugees' integration, Rikke Hvilshoj, announced in Kampala yesterday.

Addressing journalists after meeting the beneficiaries, Hvilshoj said the refugees would be received at the airport and hosted in an apartment before being guided on how to have access to education and work.

The Danish Government has an agreement with the UNHCR to accept 500 refugees annually.

This year, the refugee agency selected 68 Congolese in Uganda, including 33 children, to benefit from the exercise.

The High Commissioner also selected 42 Sudanese, 24 of them children, from Uganda.

The selected people are undergoing orientation at Hotel Exotic Inn near Bwaise, Kampala.

They will be flown out of Uganda in batches next weekend. Most of them are families but some 10 single people are among the group.

"We are not looking for a labour force. We only think there are certain people who are really needy and we should assist them.

But we hope they will also take advantage of the study and work opportunities in our country to live a better life," Hvilshoj added.

The refugees will be distributed among a number of Danish municipalities.
All education in Denmark is free for permanent residents. The refugees will benefit from a three-year Danish language course and other vocational education programmes. After three years, they will qualify to vote and to be voted into political office.

Hvilshoj praised Uganda's hospitality for looking after the refugees for up to 15 years.

"Uganda is a poor country that has received many refugees on top of its own population of internally displaced persons. Even so, Uganda has managed to strike a balance between large refugee communities and local populations living at peace side by side," she said.

This, she added, was "a remarkable achievement from which the rest of the world can learn".

In the last two years, Denmark has spent sh20b on assisting Ugandan communities that host refugees.

[source]