Group of Iraqi Refugees Accepted by Czech Republic Plans to Return Home

A group of Iraqi Christian refugees, resettled in the Czech Republic under the government's program, decided to return home, local media reported Tuesday.

PRAGUE (Sputnik) — According to the Ceska Televize broadcaster, a group of 16 Iraqi refugees tried to leave the republic and move to Germany last week, but was stopped near the border, after which they appealed to authorities with a decision to return to Iraq.

Interior Minister Milan Chovanec promised on Tuesday that Prague would help ensure the safe return of the refugees back home as soon as possible.

In May, the European Commission called on EU member states to let in some of the 40,000 refugees from Africa and the Middle East who had landed in Italy and Greece. Brussels laid out a quota system for refuge adoption that took into account social and economic indicators of each country.

Initially, the Czech Republic protested against the quota system, but eventually agreed to the program, specifying that the refugees should be "of similar background."

The Czech government initially planned to accept 153 Christian Iraqi refugees, 89 of them had already been provided with temporary accommodation. Earlier this month, the program was discontinued after a group of 25 Iraqi refugees received in the Czech Republic illegally moved to Germany, while eight of them returned to Iraq.