"We can waste no time now, the European Union must take its responsibility and see to relocating the non-Muslim minorities that left Iraq; the member states will not move until the EU takes a decision": it was said to SIR by Otmar Oehring, head of the Human Rights section of Missio, an International Catholic Missionary organisation (Germany). A meeting is going on in Brussels, promoted by Comece (Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences), to look at the situation of the Iraqi refugees, 4.4 million of them, mostly non-Muslims, including many Christians, as well as members of other religious minorities. Last November, Comece had made an appeal for these refugees, and in early January its president, mgr. Adrianus van Luyn, had written to the Slovenian presidency of the EU to ask for the issue to be put on agenda of the next meeting of the European Council and for a quota of Iraqi refugees, about 60 thousand, to be taken by our continent. Yesterday, a delegation of people working in assistance to refugees, that were in Brussels to meet the members of the European Commission and Parliament, met the head of the ministerial staff of the Commission in charge of migration, Franco Frattini. (continued)
