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IMMIGRATION

Man imprisoned after setting himself alight

A 28-year-old man who set himself alight last year after having his application for asylum rejected, sustaining serious injuries, has been convicted of arson.

The man was on Tuesday sentenced to a year’s imprisonment by an appeals court after Växjö district court had previously decided to acquit.

The then 26-year-old man set himself alight in April 2009 in a Migration Board (Migrationsverket) detention centre in Alvesta in central Sweden.

He sustained serious burns and his life was long in the balance as a result of his injuries.

The man took the drastic course of action after having finished talking with his administrator. He proceeded to lock himself into a toilet, poured petrol over his head and set himself alight.

“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 at the time.

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

The man was rushed to Växjö hospital and was later treated for his injuries at the burns unit at Linköping University Hospital.

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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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