Few countries accept biometric passports issued by Somalia

Finnish Ministry of the Interior wants to accept passport as valid travel document

print this

Most European countries do not consider biometric passports issued by Somalia to be valid travel documents.
      Only Switzerland and Austria recognise the Somali passports as valid documents for the establishment of identity.
      Finland’s Minister of Migration and European Affairs Astrid Thors (Swed. People’s Party) has proposed that Finland recognise the passports, because they would help determine the validity of applications for immigration to Finland for purposes of family unification.
     
Most European countries consider the Somali passports to be unreliable because of the country’s unstable situation. Sweden’s immigration service does not consider the passports to be valid because Somalia lacks a reliable authority to issue the documents.
      However, although a Somali passport is not accepted as a travellers only document, Swedish officials can use biometric passports as backup for other papers.
     
Finland’s Ministry of the Interior is now proposing that the Somali biometric passport be accepted as such as a valid document for travel to Finland, and as a basis for establishing identity when processing applications for residence permits.
      Biometric passports, containing an electronic record of the bearer’s fingerprints, are issued by Somalia’s provisional government.
     
Last week it emerged that the Ministry of the Interior suspects that some applications for family unification made by Somalis living in Finland are not genuine. Suspicions were raised by the sharp increase in applications for foster children in the past couple of years.
      According to recent, unconfirmed figures at the Finnish Immigration Service, family unification applications for 2,764 Somali citizens had been initiated by August 30th. Of these, 457, or about one in six, were for foster children.
     
The United Nations says that the situation in Somalia amounts to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
      Last week six Members of Parliament of the country’s provisional government were killed in a suicide attack against a hotel. More than 80 people have been killed during one week in fighting between the hard-line Muslim al-Shabab movement and the provisional government.
      The Foreign Ministry’s Africa envoy, MP Pekka Haavisto (Green), says that the situation is terrible, but that there is a foundation for peace.
      “The two sides are not necessarily terribly far from each other. A reasonable settlement is possible if the sides could be brought to negotiate. Now, two groups of equal strength are fighting for victory, and the ability to compromise is not very highly developed."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish immigration officials overwhelmed by Somali family unification requests (30.8.2010)
  Somali immigrants in Finland agonising over events in their former home country (25.8.2010)
  Immigration Service to investigate suspicions of human trafficking among Somalis (31.8.2010)

Helsingin Sanomat