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IMMIGRATION

Asylum seeker sets himself alight

A man who had his application for asylum rejected has sustained serious injuries after setting himself alight.

Published: 4 April 2009 09:51 CEST

The 26-year-old man set himself alight on Friday afternoon in a Migration Board (Migrationsverket) detention centre in Alvesta in central Sweden.

His life is now in the balance as a result of his injuries.

The man had finished talking with his administrator at around midday when he walked passed the reception and into a toilet, locking the door.

“After a while a bang was heard and the man came out of the toilet like a walking torch,” said Fredrik Svärd at Kronobergs police to news agency TT.

Staff at the centre managed to extinguish the fire, but the man had already sustained serious injuries.

Police were unable to confirm on Friday the nature of the inflammable liquid that the man had used.

The 26-year-old was rushed to Växjö hospital and was later transferred to the burns unit at Linköping University Hospital.

IMMIGRATION

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

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

Published: 20 September 2023 09:06 CEST
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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