Libyan refugees begin new life in Norway

GENEVA — A group of 33 child refuEuropean countries in particular, to gees who fled the conflict in Libya last offer more resettlement places for year have been resettled in Norway, the refugees on the borders of Egypt and UN refugee agency said yesterday. Tunisia and to speed up decisions on

The children, whose parents are eicurrent applications. ther dead or cannot be traced, left TuMeanwhile, more Iraqi refunisia’s Shousha camp on Sunday. gees returned to their homeland in

Mostly from Somalia, Sudan, 2011 than any year since 2004, UN Ethiopia and Eritrea, the youngsters figures showed yesterday, with the aged up to 18 were among 90 who arlargest number coming from Syria, rived alone from Libya in 2011, the which has been rocked by months of UN High Commissioner for Refugees protests. (UNHCR) said. According to data published by the

In total, 39 have now been resetUNHCR, the UN’S refugee agency, tled, mostly to Norway, Sweden and 62,340 people returned to Iraq beDenmark. tween December 2010 and November

“As they had formed strong bonds 2011. among each other, the departure has The largest number of returnees in been painful for many of them — not 2011 came back to Iraq from Syria, least those still awaiting resettlement,” with 25,730 arriving from the neighsaid UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edbouring country. wards. The next biggest group — 17,750

Some of the children were parent— returned from Iran, while 4,130 less when they arrived in Libya while came from Jordan. others lost or became separated from The number of returnees from Libthem before entering Tunisia. ya increased around tenfold to 1,010,

The agency called on states, and UN figures showed. — AFP