Published : 09-01-2022
Palestinian refugees stranded on the French island of Guiana have been subjected to a precarious legal status and dire humanitarian condition.
As the conflict broke out in Syria, thousands of Palestinian refugees fled the war-torn country to Brazil after they obtained humanitarian asylum visas from Lebanon. Scores of them illegally crossed to Guiana island. The majority of them arrived in the Brazilian city of Macapa before they crossed Oyapock River by boat and finally disembarked on French Guiana. A number of others came from Venezuela.
The number of Palestinians from Syria on Guiana Island is estimated, according to unofficial statistics, between 700 to 1,000.
PRS families who first arrived on the island, had been subjected to homelessness and sheltered for several weeks in the canvas tents set up on the streets. They later managed to apply for asylum and submitted their demands at the municipality. They obtained a six-month asylum visa and a sum of €250 per person as a food grant. Two months later, they obtained visas, following interviews with the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). However, the Immigration Department rejects asylum applications for new arrivals among PRS. A number of new comers managed to obtain visas following appeals to the Court of Appeal.
A Palestinian from Syria gets a ten-year residence permit. OFPRA classifies PRS as stateless and refers to them through the acronym xxx.
PRS also face enormous difficulties trying to get French birth certificates in order to be able to issue a residence card and a passport. Many of them wait up to one year and a half.
Discrimination, exorbitant house rents, and lack of access to the local labor market have also been among the dilemmas suffered by PRS on the island.
French Guiana is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. It borders Brazil to the east and south and Suriname to the west. With a land area of 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi), French Guiana is the second-largest region of France (more than one-seventh the size of Metropolitan France) and the largest outermost region within the European Union. It has very low population density, with only 3.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.1/sq mi).
Palestinian refugees stranded on the French island of Guiana have been subjected to a precarious legal status and dire humanitarian condition.
As the conflict broke out in Syria, thousands of Palestinian refugees fled the war-torn country to Brazil after they obtained humanitarian asylum visas from Lebanon. Scores of them illegally crossed to Guiana island. The majority of them arrived in the Brazilian city of Macapa before they crossed Oyapock River by boat and finally disembarked on French Guiana. A number of others came from Venezuela.
The number of Palestinians from Syria on Guiana Island is estimated, according to unofficial statistics, between 700 to 1,000.
PRS families who first arrived on the island, had been subjected to homelessness and sheltered for several weeks in the canvas tents set up on the streets. They later managed to apply for asylum and submitted their demands at the municipality. They obtained a six-month asylum visa and a sum of €250 per person as a food grant. Two months later, they obtained visas, following interviews with the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). However, the Immigration Department rejects asylum applications for new arrivals among PRS. A number of new comers managed to obtain visas following appeals to the Court of Appeal.
A Palestinian from Syria gets a ten-year residence permit. OFPRA classifies PRS as stateless and refers to them through the acronym xxx.
PRS also face enormous difficulties trying to get French birth certificates in order to be able to issue a residence card and a passport. Many of them wait up to one year and a half.
Discrimination, exorbitant house rents, and lack of access to the local labor market have also been among the dilemmas suffered by PRS on the island.
French Guiana is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. It borders Brazil to the east and south and Suriname to the west. With a land area of 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi), French Guiana is the second-largest region of France (more than one-seventh the size of Metropolitan France) and the largest outermost region within the European Union. It has very low population density, with only 3.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.1/sq mi).
