Syrian refugees: First families arrive in Northern Ireland

Schoolchildren drew cards to welcome the Syrian refugee families

The first group of Syrian refugees have arrived in Northern Ireland as part of the UK's Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme.

Fifty-one refugees travelled to Belfast from Lebanon. Eleven of them are children aged under five.

They will spend their first few days in a special welcome centre, before moving into Belfast's private rented sector.

They are among 20,000 Syrian refugees who will be resettled across the UK over the next five years.

The families will spend their first few days in Belfast at a special welcome centre

They arrived in Belfast on Tuesday afternoon

Each of the families will be helped to find a home, a job and school places for their children

Denise Wright, co-ordinator for Refugee Asylum Forum, explained what would happen once they arrived in Northern Ireland.

Denise Wright said the forum had been "overwhelmed" with people wanting to help

"They'll be taken to a welcome centre where they'll obviously get a meal and just recuperate from the travel," she said.

'Overwhelmed'

"Over the next few days they will be going through the systems in order to get recorded on different databases and make sure they get everything they are entitled to and link them up with key workers who will help them get through that process."

Ms Wright said the forum had been "overwhelmed" with people wanting to help.

"Obviously these are only 10 families that are coming. There are only so many buggies and so many bags of clothes we can take so we had suggested that people might send us welcome cards," she said.

"We've been completely inundated, hundreds and hundreds of them, just to show that real sort of Belfast, Northern Ireland, welcome."

The scheme will resettle refugees living in camps in countries bordering Syria

She said she was aware that some people were "not happy" about the arrival of the refugees.

"They're a tiny minority and it's always worth remembering that and hopefully the communities that these people move into will rally around them," she added.

Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme

• All of the "paperwork" is completed before the refugees arrive.

• It prioritises women and children at risk, people in need of medical attention and survivors of torture and violence.

• All refugees settled under the scheme have undergone a two-step security screening process.

• People under the scheme will have access to housing, medical care and education, and they can work.

• The Home Office will provide funding of at least £10,000 per refugee for the first year.

• Refugees taken into the UK under the scheme will be granted five years' humanitarian protection which includes access to public funds, the labour market and the possibility of family reunion, if a person was separated from their partner or child when leaving their country.

• After those five years they can apply to settle in the UK.

The Department for Social Development has direct responsibility for overseeing the operation of bringing the refugees into Northern Ireland.

The families will be given toiletries when they arrive

The chair of the social development committee, Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey, said the priority was to ensure the refugees arrival was as smooth as possible and that their privacy was respected.

"These people are traumatised, they're coming from a camp from which they've been staying for some time, they're coming on a direct flight, so they've a lot to be contending with over the next number of days," he said.

"I think the people directly responsible for sorting them out want to have as peaceful and manageable a situation if at all possible.

"First of all there is the privacy, there is also the actual need to be able to process in peace and quiet.

"There will obviously be well wishers who will also probably want to be there as well, but that is not what we want at this stage of the game.

Wellwishers have created cards welcoming the families to Northern Ireland

"The security issue is one which would be in the back of people's minds but it wouldn't be a predominant fear, I don't think."

This is the first time Northern Ireland has participated in a refugee resettlement program.

Toys will be provided for the child refugees

It will accept a second group of refugees between January and April next year.

They will be settled in the north west of Northern Ireland.

Messages and cards drawn up by local schoolchildren to welcome the Syrian families to Northern Ireland were put on display at the reception centre on Monday.

More Syrian refugees are due to arrive in Northern Ireland in the New Year