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IMMIGRATION

Real Madrid football club join drive to help refugees based in Spain

Spanish giants Real Madrid will donate €1 million (US$1.1m) to help support projects for refugees in Spain, the club announced on Saturday.

Real Madrid football club join drive to help refugees based in Spain
Photo: AFP

“Real Madrid states that it will donate one million euros to help refugees that will be hosted by Spain,” they said in a statement.

“Loyal to its compromise to charity, the club has taken this decision with the objective to help the men, women and children that have been obliged to abandon their homes to flee war and death.”

Madrid announced earlier in the week the club's turnover reached a record €660 million last season.

The club will also provide sports kits for young refugees and make some of their facilities available to the commission charged with overseeing the hosting of those welcomed into Spain.

The gesture is one of many by the world of sport in recent days to react to the European wide crisis.

Bayern Munich said on Thursday they would also give one million euros and work with Munich authorities to set up training camps for children to receive German lessons, meals and football kits.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has also pledged to donate two million dollars in emergency funds.

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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