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IMMIGRATION

Refugee advocate is ‘Swede of the Year’

Anita Dorazio, a 72-year-old advocate who pioneered health clinics for refugees in hiding, has been named Swede of the Year for 2008 by the weekly news magazine Fokus.

Refugee advocate is 'Swede of the Year'

Dorazio, who resides in the upscale Stockholm suburb of Lidingö, opened her first underground clinic in the back of neighbourhood café and book store in 1995 with the help of infectious diseases specialist Anders Björkman.

At the time, providing health care to refugees in hiding was a little known issue and Dorazio depended on volunteer healthcare workers, many of whom had experience working in makeshift clinics in developing countries, according to Fokus.

At Dorazio’s urging, a second clinic opened in Gothenburg in 1998. In the last decade, a number of similar clinics have been launched around the country, all drawing inspiration from Dorazio’s original café clinic on Lidingö.

In honouring Dorazio, Fokus cited her “tireless, engaged, and goal oriented work for the rights of refugees” saying that her efforts have “contributed to a tolerable existence for many vulnerable refugees”.

“Her efforts have also put Swedish refugee policy in focus as well as the continued fight for people’s equal value in Sweden,” wrote Fokus.

Dorazio now represents the Swedish Network of Asylum and Refugee Support Groups (FARR) as she continues her nearly 40 year career supporting refugee rights.

In 1999, she, along Hédi Fried, was awarded the Eldh-Ekblad peace prize, an annual award given by the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (Svenska Freds).

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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