Minister: Czech Republic won’t take in 40 child refugees from Greek camps

The Czech Republic will not accept 40 child refugees from camps in Greece, says the country’s minister of the interior, Jan Hamáček. Speaking the Prima TV station on Sunday, Mr. Hamáček said the Greek government had refused to hand over a list of names of children, adding that he would not bring 18-year-old Afghans into the country as they would represent a security risk. The minister said that as far as he was concerned the matter was closed.

In September the Athens government called on all EU interior ministers to take in unaccompanied child refugees. Mr. Hamáček said that this had been an effort to revive a debate on sharing out refugees but that in his view it made no sense to move around 17-year-olds with no right to asylum.

Author: Ian Willoughby