Guinea-Bissau’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Delfim Da Silva, has resigned over a scandal surrounding the illegal transportation of 74 Syrians.<br /><br />However, Da Silva’s resignation has yet to be accepted by his government.<br /><br />His resignation comes after Guinean authorities allegedly forced the airline TAP to fly the Syrian emigrants to Lisbon, despite their passports being fake.<br /><br />TAP has now cancelled all flights to Guinea-Bissau while a revaluation of security authorities in the country is being carried out.<br /><br />The passengers have reportedly applied for asylum in Portugal. If approved, they’ll be able to travel freely through most of the EU, under the terms of the Schengen Agreement.<br /><br />Da Silva has spoken out about what he is calling a “human trafficking” operation.<br /><br />“We send cocaine to other countries and now we are trafficking human beings,” he said in a statement to the press. “It starts in Morocco. Our diplomatic representation delivers visas without consulting the government … They arrive with Syrian passports, they leave with Turkish passports. It’s a big confusion and I thought that I should get away from this.” <br /><br />Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, is used by Latin America as a transshipment point to Europe for cocaine.<br /><br />The Portuguese Foreign Ministry has recommended Portuguese nationals don’t travel to the country.
