Portela airport saw the arrival on Tuesday (December 10) of 74 men, women and children – all Syrian refugees travelling on false passports and claiming political asylum.
As space for refugees is already “overloaded” in Portugal and temporary accommodation at the airport was not big enough, the group is being cared for at Social Services institutions (including the Santa Casa da Misericórdia) while SEF, the immigrants and border control authority, investigates the new arrivals’ true identities, reports Público newspaper.
Arriving on a TAP flight from Guinea-Bissau, one of the women was pregnant and had to be taken to hospital.
Público also answers the question of how 74 people travelling on false passports could have been allowed onto a scheduled flight.
“A source at SEF said the commander of the TAP flight was forced to allow the passengers on board by the authorities in Guinea-Bissau, who did not want to receive the refugees,” wrote the newspaper. However, the Guinea-Bissau government, through Minister Fernando Vaz, has already denied this was the case, saying: “We have the latest passport technology and we can assure you the passports were genuine. The passengers arrived here from Casablanca on an Air Maroc flight and had tickets for Lisbon. Their destination was not Guinea-Bissau.”
This is the second time refugees from the ongoing civil war in Syria have been detained in Lisbon apparently travelling on counterfeit passports. “Habitually Syrian citizens given refugee status do not stay in Portugal”, adds Público, revealing “there is only one Syrian family living here. They prefer to continue on to northern Europe” – Sweden, particularly, which in September became the first country in the EU to offer permanent resident status to Syrian refugees.
Also in September this year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Portugal was prepared to take in 15 Syrian refugees by the end of 2013.
Público reports that SEF inspectors frequently travel to Bissau to personally check the passports of people travelling to Portugal “in order to avoid situations just like the one that happened early on Tuesday morning”. The checks are done on the stairs of the aircraft, in order not to be “acting illegally on Guinea-Bissau territory”.
Newspapers report that the apparently false travel documents had all been emitted in Turkey.
