Several hundred Norwegians demonstrated in front of Parliament Monday afternoon, demanding that Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the rest of her government take in more than just 50 asylum seekers from the ruins of the Moria refugee camp in Greece. Solberg has so far refused to do so, and both her ministers in charge of foreign aid and immigration were busy with other tasks on Monday.
Solberg didn’t even mention the Moria crisis when speaking at her Conservative Party’s annual meeting on Friday. Around 13,000 people need shelter after their camp was burned by arsonists last week, and Solberg has faced both protests and ridicule since offering to take in only 50 people.
Confronted with the ongoing opposition to her government’s restrictive immigration and asylum policies, Solberg told state broadcaster NRK that Norway has agreed to take in 3,000 refugees through the UN’s quota system. She also repeated claims of how her government prefers to help asylum seekers “where they are” instead of bringing them to Norway. She also claimed that Norway has offered financial assistance to Greece, which along with Italy has borne the brunt of all the thousands of migrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa.
newsinenglish.no staff
