Refugees Without Right to Stay in EU Must Leave Bloc - Merkel

Europe will continue observing its humanitarian obligations, though those refugees who have no right to stay in the European Union must return to their home countries, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday.

BERLIN (Sputnik) — EU border agency Frontex detected over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in 2015, in contrast to some 283,000 in 2014. Of these, more than one million net arrivals streamed into Germany, according to the German Federal Statistical Office.

"We have common interests in the European Commission over return of refugees and we will introduce it into the European agenda. It mist be clear that we will stay committed to our humanitarian obligations, but we should say that those who have no right to stay must return home. Otherwise we will not be able to do what we want to do for those who have escaped from war," Merkel said at a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

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© AFP 2023 / Gabriel Bouys

A man and his daughter wait during a distribution of meals aboard the rescue ship "Aquarius", on May 25, 2016 a day after a rescue operation of migrants and refugees off the Libyan coast.

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© Photo : Wassim Omar

A refugee woman at the migrants camp in Chios, Greece.

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© AFP 2023 / Vladimir Simicek

Refugees walk from railway station in Hegyeshalom in Hungary toward the Austrian border.

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© Flickr / European Commission DG ECHO

Claims of child abuse at an official EU refugee camp

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© Sputnik / Michael Alaeddin

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Refugees from block 1070 in south-western Aleppo who received aid in a Sunday Orthodox School by an Orthodox church in Aleppo.

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© AFP 2023 / Gabriel Bouys

A man and his daughter wait during a distribution of meals aboard the rescue ship "Aquarius", on May 25, 2016 a day after a rescue operation of migrants and refugees off the Libyan coast.

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© Photo : Wassim Omar

A refugee woman at the migrants camp in Chios, Greece.

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© AFP 2023 / Vladimir Simicek

Refugees walk from railway station in Hegyeshalom in Hungary toward the Austrian border.

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© Flickr / European Commission DG ECHO

Claims of child abuse at an official EU refugee camp

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© Sputnik / Michael Alaeddin

/

Go to the mediabank

Refugees from block 1070 in south-western Aleppo who received aid in a Sunday Orthodox School by an Orthodox church in Aleppo.

Europe is struggling to find a solution to the massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in order to reach stable and wealthy European countries, such as Germany and Sweden.