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Tuesday 20, October 2009
“Bringing Refugees to Safety” is a new brochure showcasing the Emergency Transit Centre (ETC) in Timisoara. Following its international launch in Geneva in late September, the success story of refugee evacuation via Romania has now also been presented to the media and the diplomatic community in Bucharest.
In a launching ceremony on 20 October, co-organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) the participants called the ETC a European “model for creating humanitarian space.”
The 16 page brochure gives an overview of the project’s history, its residents and the future of refugee protection in Europe, where evacuation and resettlement programmes will play an increaslngly important role.
The publication was designed by Saatchi & Saatchi Romania, and printed with the financial support of the European Commision Representation in Romania.
The ETC is a center with a reception capacity of 200, offering safety for the short-term stay (maximum 6 months) of refugees who needed to be taken out of dangerous situations and are in urgent need of resettlement.
During the launching event in Bucharest, UNHCR Representative in Romania, Machiel Salomons, IOM Chief of Mission, Cristina Gheoghe-Tranca and the Romanian Immigration Office, Mr. Catalin Necula, as well as State Secretary Bogdan Aurescu emphasized their positive experiences with the ETC, both regarding its day to day management and the cooperation with donor and resettlement countries.
On 29 September, the brochure was launched at the annual UNHCR Executive Committee meeting, within the Humanitarian Space and Human Security side event.
A Tri-Partite Agreement signed in May 2008 between UNHCR, the Romanian Government and the International Organization for Migration provides the legal basis for the existence of the ETC.
Since opening its gates in November 2008, the Centre accommodated almost 400 refugees of Eritrean, Sudanese, Palestinian and Ethiopian nationalities. Currently, 140 refugees are awaiting departure to resettlement countries. The most recent group of 72 Palestinian refugees arrived on 15 October, from the al-Waleed Camp in Iraq.
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