13 January 2010, 22:00
Poland deports Georgians who tried to seize a train
Today, 24 citizens of Georgia were deported from Poland to Georgia by a special Warsaw-Tbilisi charter flight. Among them, there are also participants of the December incident with the train in Poland, when a group of citizens of the Russian Federation and Georgia, who claimed for refugee status, illegally occupied seats in a train and demanded to bring them to Strasbourg.
Then, refugees stated that they wanted to complain to the European Court of Human Rights of bad living conditions in refugee centres in Poland. On December 18, the court of the frontier Polish city of Zgorzelec, where the refugees were detained, ruled to deport the Georgian and Chechen natives, who took part in capturing the train.
The "Interfax" reports that the deportees have already landed in Tbilisi.
In total, Poland operates 20 accommodation and residence centres for foreigners. The major group in search of shelter in Poland is made up of Chechens. Besides, last year the refuge was granted to Belarusians, Armenians, Vietnamese and Iraqis. In 2009, the authorities rejected several thousands applications filed by citizens of Georgia, as reported by the Polish newspaper "Dziennik Gazeta Prawna".
