President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solís rejected on Friday giving shelter to Syrian refugees. "We are in a very different cultural area, and there isn't a community of reference able to give them shelter," he excused himself. According to Solis, those coming from Syria would not find the sociological, religious or cultural shelter they need to live normally in this nation. In the opinion of Solis, welcoming the refugees would only have a symbolic implication, "without an important incidence in the situation of crisis." "I would rather maintain a very serious, responsible and articulated policy in handling immigrants or those asking for political asylum than playing with people who have very great needs and even greater expectations that finally will end in a country that is not adequate and even condemned to discrimination," he added. The United Nations estimated that some 381,000 Syrian refugees and immigrants traveled to Europe during 2015, a situation that analysts describe as migratory crisis.
