Bidart will welcome migrants from the Calais camp | Euskal Herria
The city of Bidart will welcome, Thursday, January 27, several dozen people from the Calais refugee camp. These migrants will be accommodated at the Bi Izarrak holiday center and will be looked after by the Atherbea association. An assessment of their situation and referral to measures ad hoc, such as reception centers for asylum seekers, will then be created.
Emmanuel Alzuri, mayor of Bidart, explains to MEDIABASK that it was a request from the French state to which the municipality responded favorably. A question of “national solidarity” and “duty of humanity that we impose on ourselves”, affirms the city councilor.
However, the municipality “expressly requested” that the reception be for a period of that (until February 20) “so that throughout this period but also afterwards, we can take stock of this reception, see so precisely the reception conditions make it possible to envisage a future if there were to be one” considers Emmanuel Alzuri. Thus, even if the holiday center will resume its activities during the winter holidays, the mayor does not rule out studying possible “follow-ups to be given” to this first reception experience.
The prefecture of Pyrénées-Atlantiques specifies in a press release that migrants will have the freedom to come and go and they will benefit from lodging and cutlery. “Welcoming these people fleeing war and persecution is above all responding to a humanitarian objective. Like other territories, our territory must meet this imperative. This is a matter of national solidarity,” the statement concluded.