The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Rolations, in an exclusive statement today to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, said that “it has not granted visas for immigration to Colombia to any group of persons of any nationality.”
The statement said that Colombia “has authorized only individual visas after study of each case and only in cases where there are near relatives such as parents, children or spouses resident in Colombia, or in cases of persons having professions useful to the country such as industrial and agricultural techniques.
“The Ministry has ordered its diplomatic and consular agents to make an exhaustive investigation of the origin and basis of reports published in today’s press,” the statement concluded.
An official spokesman told a JTA correspondent that group visas, such as those reportedly held by the 4,500 refugees being returned to France from Palestine, are never issued, and that the ministry here and not the consul in Paris will decide individual cases.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
