Italy's foreign minister has called for a humane approach to migration that helps people in need of protection to enter Europe rather than building walls and fences to keep refugees and migrants out.
"We don't need walls or fences but a different type of approach, starting with humanitarian corridors," Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday.
He was speaking to journalists at Rome's Fiumicino airport as a group of 93 Syrian refugees arrived in Italy under a pilot project involving the Italian government and several charities.
Many of the Syrians are from the devastated city of Homs and include a large number of women and children, Gentiloni said.
"A total of 1,000 people will reach Europe under this project, escaping the dangerous clutches of people traffickers, and the unimaginable suffering we see daily along the migration routes," he said.
The 24 Syrian families, who have 41 children, many of them sick and disabled, have been living in tents and garages in Lebanon for the past five years, where they suffered a lack of medical care and cold in the winter.
The 1,000 people who will arrive in Italy over the next two years will come from refugee camps in Lebanon but also from the Horn of Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, according to project managers.
The Syrian refugees who have arrived will stay in northern and central Italy in accommodation provided by the project's partner charities while their political asylum requests are processed.
"I hope that this initiative will catch on in other European countries and even ones further afield, saving many tens of thousands of people from the drama of illegal immigration and human trafficking," Gentiloni concluded.
