ZAGREB, April 11, 2018 - The representative of the agency of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Croatia Giuseppe DiCaro has said that Croatia is setting a positive example of care for refugees from Syria and other Middle East countries, by accommodating 560 refugees and helping 100 of them to find work.
Speaking at the ongoing Festival of Tolerance on Tuesday evening, Di Caro said that he wanted to praise Croatia for the accommodation it had provided for the refugees and for enabling refugee children to go to school. This is not the case with other countries, I must praise Croatia, the UNHCR representative said at a round table on the future of Europe, held as part of the festival's programme.
The head of the European Commission's Representation Branko Baričević said that Europe was developing new systems for improved acceptance of refugees, and in this context he mentioned plans for introducing a so-called "blue card" in the European Union, which is supposed to be similar to the green card that enables the holders to live and work permanently in the United States.
The head of the Jesuit Refugee Service in South-East Europe Tvrtko Barun spoke about his experience in taking care for refugees in Croatia and about the Croatians' increasingly positive attitude towards people seeking shelter here. He called for breaking stereotypes about people of different cultures and religions.
