Refugees of Idomeni camp wait to be bused to other destinations at the border of Greece and Macedonia, May 24, 2016. Almost 1 million people have passed through Greece, the vast majority arriving on islands from the nearby Turkish coast.
Advertisement
More than 54,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in financially struggling Greece since countries further north shut their land borders to a massive flow of people escaping war and poverty at home.
But on Wednesday, the Save the Children charity was already reporting major problems at the new sites. Under the deal, anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands from the Turkish coast after March 18 faces deportation to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece.
“Now that the evacuation has started, it is paramount that authorities make it a priority to keep families together, and to ensure that children are being transferred to facilities where they can live in conditions that meet European and worldwide standards for child welfare”, she said. Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said the non-violent evacuation has healed what he called a “wound” in the management of the migrant crisis.
Authorities have also cleared a railway line linking Greece with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which for months had been blocked by people protesting to be allowed passage to Northern Europe. Inside the Idomeni camp, police in riot gear stood guard as people boarded the buses, state TV footage showed.Idomeni camp, police in riot gear stood guard as people boarded the buses, state TV footage showed.
The closure followed similar moves by other countries along the so-called western Balkan route, the overland path taken by hundreds of thousands of migrants who have entered Europe from Turkey through Greece, on their trek to desirable northern European “destination countries” such as Germany and Sweden. “That’s what everybody who’s been there said”, Hind Al Mkawi, a 38-year-old refugee from Damascus, told the AP news agency on Monday evening.
The government has been trying for months to persuade people to leave Idomeni and go to organized camps.
Melanie Ward of the of the New York-based humanitarian agency the International Rescue Committee said Tuesday’s police action was a result of European Union reluctance to follow through with commitments to relocate refugees from Greece to other member states. “We don’t have money or work – what will we do?” “At Idomeni, I spent three months just eating and sleeping, but I want to work”.
Advertisement
Global charity Save the Children said it was concerned about a lack of basic services such as bathrooms and shelters in the official camps.
