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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Friday, 29.03.2024, 07:08

Estonia sends Iraqi family back to Baghdad

BC, Tallinn, 25.11.2015.Print version

Estonia last week sent back to Baghdad an Iraqi family that arrived in Estonia in the summer and did not wish to file an application for asylum here, the weekly Eesti Ekspress said, cites LETA/BNS.

 

The family of four, consisting of 23-year-old Noor, 29-year-old Sufjan and their two small children, arrived in Estonia from Vienna in the summer as part of the wave of refugees that came to Europe. They wished to travel to Finland where the wife's parents live.

 

The family were detained in the port of Tallinn together with another Iraqi family and two Iraqi nationals with Finnish residence permits traveling together with the families.

 

Placed in the detention center for asylum seekers at Harku near Tallinn, the families were told that the only possibility for them to remain in the European Union is to ask Estonia for asylum, the newspaper said. Noor and Sufjan did not wish to file an application for asylum in Estonia and they were put on a plane bound for Istanbul on Tuesday.

 

The other family filed an application for asylum. On Oct. 30 the Tallinn administrative court ruled that the wife and the children of that family must be released from the detention center. The husband meanwhile must remain at Harku to prevent "a real risk" of the family fleeing Estonia.

 

On November 11 the court handed down suspended jail sentences to the two Finnish residence permit holders for illegal transportation of foreigners across the border and banned them from entering Estonia for five years.





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