ROME – UNHCR announced 18 September that the winner of the 2019 Nansen Refugee Award for Europe would be the Italian organisation Humanitarian Corridors.

 The Nansen Refugee Award is presented annually to an individual, group or organisation who has gone to extraordinary lengths in protecting refugees and forcibly displaced and stateless people. 

 It was announced on Wednesday at a press conference at the new UNHCR offices in Via Leopardi, Rome, that the regional prize would go to Humanitarian Corridors.  This project allows particularly vulnerable refugees to travel safely and legally to Italy, and receive support on their arrival to integrate into Italian society and become self-supporting.  The cost of transferring the refugees to Italy, and the year’s support refugees are given, is paid for entirely by the implementing bodies.  The scheme has also been used as a model in countries such as France and Belgium.

 Wednesday will see the arrival in Rome of the last of 91 Syrian refugees coming from Lebanon with the programme, making 2,700 people who have now found a new life in Europe thanks to Humanitarian Corridors.  The new arrivals will be helped by associations, parishes, communities and families in various Italian regions.  Italian language classes for the adults and school for the children will immediately be made available, along with opportunities to work once refugee status is confirmed.

 Roland Schilling, the UNHCR regional representative for southern Europe, described it as a "wonderful programme."

 The Humanitarian Corridors project is implemented by a group of Christian organisations – the Community of Sant’Egidio; the Italian Bishops’ Conference-Italian Caritas; the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI) and the Waldensian Table, working with the Italian foreign and interior ministries.  It was set up in response to the death of 368 refugees and migrants, most of whom were from Eritrea, when their boat capsized off Lampedusa on October 3 2013.

 It was stressed at the press conference that one of the most important aspects of the project was the way it provided an alternative to extremely dangerous sea crossings and people-smuggling. 

 “Too many people die – in the Sahara desert and in the sea even close to Europe.  The dying has to stop,” said Schilling, commenting on the crisis.

 Humanitarian Corridors provides a different and far safer model for refugees to move, and also demonstrates how non-governmental organisations and state institutions can cooperate well.

 Since its establishment in 2015, Humanitarian Corridors has moved more than 2,000 refugees and vulnerable people to Italy.  Danait Guush Gebreselassie, herself a refugee who arrived in Italy in January with Caritas and Humanitarian Corridors, said at the conference that many people had escaped oppression and started a new life thanks to the project.

 Claudio Cottaltellucci of Sant’Egidio described the project as making the right to asylum effective and practicable. 

 Another reason for awarding Humanitarian Corridors the prize was that the project represents “a tangible sign of international responsibility,” said Schilling.  Compared to other countries around the world, the states of Europe take in few refugees.  Humanitarian Corridors therefore represents a commitment to sharing the duty of looking after refugees with other countries.

 UNHCR has stressed the importance of “safe pathways” more generally.  These allow refugees to escape conflict and persecution without having to undertake extremely dangerous journeys, and ensure that the responsibility of taking in refugees is shared between countries.

 Humanitarian Corridors transfers refugees to Italy on the basis of four separate protocols signed by the religious bodies, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.  390 more have been moved to France, 150 to Belgium and 12 to Andorra.

 It was revealed at the press conference that a similar project may begin soon in Germany.

 Of the four Italian protocols, the first transferred 1035 people, mainly from Lebanon and Morocco.  The second transferred 498 people from Ethiopia.  Both of these have now closed, but a third ongoing protocol has so far moved 595 out of a total of 1,000 people from Lebanon and Morocco.  A further protocol signed in May 2019 will facilitate the movement of 600 people from Jordan, Ethiopia and Niger, with the first arrivals expected in October.

 The award will be formally presented to Humanitarian Corridors on September 25.

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