537 Timor nationals ‘taken off streets’

The secretary of state for Equality and Migrations has said it has been possible to find accommodation for 537 Timor nationals (63 this week) who have been left in situations of homelessness and extreme poverty due to the recent wave of migrations that brought them, on spurious grounds, to Portugal. More than 160 of these nationals have so far been integrated into the labour market. SIC television news carried an exposé on this problem recently, which is still some way from being solved. Young people in Timor have been being duped into believing there is work for them in Portugal – paying large sums of money and getting into debt to agencies in Dili and elsewhere – only to find when they get here there is no prospect of the work they were ‘promised’.