Family raise enough to repatriate migrant

A PORTUGUESE family has raised enough money from a public appeal to bring the body of their dead son home from Scotland.

Relatives of migrant worker Hugo Policarpo, 32, had to find €4500 to fly his remains back to Portugal.

He was found dead in his Galashiels home earlier this month after family and friends had not heard from for some days.

Police have released his body but his family lacked the means to repatriate it for a funeral in his home town of Almeirim, north of Lisbon.

But the family has raised the money needed while a local funeral director has agreed to store his remains for free while arrangements are made.

Mr Policarpo’s case, while largely ignored in Scotland, sparked anger in Portugal, which has suffered a new wave of emigration since the financial crash.

Many feel

that

such migrants are effectively abandoned by the Portuguese aut hor i t ie s . Economic migrants rarely have the kind of tourist travel insurance that would pay for their remains to be repatriated.

Maria José Botas, the family friend who launched the campaign to bring Mr Policarpo home, expressed real frustration with the lack of aid from the government.

She said: “I have contacted the Foreign Ministers and gone from service to service until I was told it would be best if I got in contact with social security services in Scotland.

“Our authorities send young people to emigrate and then when situations like this arise they don’t help.”

Mr Policarpo moved to Scotland after working for nine years in a factory in his home town. He had been working in a hotel for a week after losing his job when the pizzeria where he worked closed, reports said.