Italy has welcomed more than 300 migrants via humanitarian corridors over the past two weeks. The new right-wing government has said it says 'yes' to the corridors and 'no' to traffickers and "illegal immigration".
Two groups of Afghan refugees have arrived in Italy through humanitarian corridors recently: 26 people landed in Rome from Tehran on Tuesday and 152 people from Pakistan arrived last week.
This week, a group of 51 refugees arrived in Rome. They were granted visas and scholarships through the 'UNICORE - University Corridors for Refugees project'. They will study at 33 Italian universities.
Thanks to a humanitarian corridors project, on Wednesday, 37 Syrian nationals including 13 minors arrived in Rome on a flight from Beirut. On October 28, another 29 refugees are due to arrive from Lebanon.
Humanitarian corridors bring new groups of asylum seekers to Italy and Belgium from Cyprus and Lebanon, with the last legs of the initiative carried out by the Sant' Egidio Community.
More than 300 Afghan refugees will have arrived this week in Italy via humanitarian corridors. The first arrivals touched down in Rome on Monday and Wednesday, more are expected to arrive on Thursday.
At least 95 refugees from various African countries and Syria have arrived in Italy on a UNHCR charter flight. The migrants were victims of torture and other serious forms of abuse.
The first flight of 2022 to evacuate vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers from Libya arrived in Rome this week. They are mainly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Forty-eight people landed at Rome's Fiumicino airport on Friday, January 28 with a flight from Athens via a humanitarian corridor promoted by the Community of Sant'Egidio.
Munzir and Mustafa, a Syrian father and son, both missing limbs due to the war in their home country and featured in a now-well-known photo entitled 'Hardship of Life', are starting a new life in Italy, where they arrived Friday with their family.
The German foreign minister said more needs to be done to help Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban takeover. Some 15,000 people which Germany vowed to take in are still stranded there.
The foundation Migrantes set up by the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) has called on European countries to open 'legal pathways of migration' to prevent human trafficking and 'deaths both at sea and on land.'