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Mucenieki population in Latvia object to construction of detention center for foreigners

BC, Riga, 16.02.2016.Print version
The local population of the Ropazi municipality in central Latvia object to the planned construction of a detention center for foreigners in the Mucenieki village, which already is a home of Latvia's only asylum seeker center.

The municipality told LETA that it agreed with the population of Mucenieki that construction of the detention center for foreigners in the village is a project that might have serious effects on the local residents and the opportunities for the development of the village.

 

In addition to renovation and expansion of the existing facility in Mucenieki where asylum seekers live while waiting for the Latvian authorities to decide on their asylum requests, it is planned to build in the village a detention center for the foreigners caught at illegally crossing Latvia’s borders. Latvia already has one such detention center in the Daugavpils city in eastern Latvia where those, who had not filed a request for asylum, are waiting for extradition, but this facility is full to the brim, therefore it was decided to build a new facility in Mucenieki. It will comprise two buildings that are to be renovated and surrounded by a fence.

 

The muncipality said that, in response to the people's suggestion about organizing a public discussion of the project, it had explained to the local residents the relevant rules. If 5% of the local population signed a petition for holding a public discussion, the local council will have to decide on the subject within a month after receiving the petition with the required number of signatures.

 

The first six asylum seekers arrived in Latvia from Greece in early February. The first arrivals are two families – one from Eritrea and one from Syria, who have been taken to the asylum seeker center in Mucenieki.

 

Latvia has undertaken to accept 531 asylum seekers to be relocated from Greece and Italy under the EU-wide refugee relocation scheme. In addition to the refugees to be relocated to Latvia from other EU member states flooded with refugees from Africa and the Middle East, Latvia is also seeing an influx of illegal immigrants entering the country across the borders with Russia and Belarus, and some of them also file asylum requests.






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