Hundreds of mostly Syrian asylum-seekers continued to arrive…
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A ferry carrying 1,169 migrants arrived Sunday at the port of Elefsina, west of Athens. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging migrants in the squalid tent city at Idomeni, on the Greek-Mace…
The numbers are daunting: officials said as of Saturday there were 47,500 refugees in Greece, including 8,200 on the islands and 10,500 massed at the Idomeni camp on the Macedonian border. Since the beginning of the crisis, Greece has struggled to provide housing for an ever-growing number of asylum seekers and to reduce the time required to process their applications.
The official also said Monday that European nations won’t “pick and choose” the Syrian refugees that they will take from Turkey according to religion or educational status, saying priority will be given to Syrians with special needs as identified by the refugee agency.
African migrants covered with blankets sit on a bus a short while before they are taken to Moria camp, after they were rescued by the Greek coast guard off the coast of the Greek island of Lesbos, Monday, March 21, 2016.
Some 25 officials from Turkey’s migration authority had been sent to five Greek islands to help prepare for the return of the irregular migrants to Turkey, the official said. The Turkish government has given some limited rights to Syrians.
It also remains unclear what will happen to the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees already in Greece after the closure of the main route through the Balkans.
“We need results in a few weeks, because the credibility of the deal depends on the results being there, because there is so much at stake”, says Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini. Any Turkish citizens who overstay that limit can be returned to Turkey.
(Vatican Radio) During his Palm Sunday homily, Pope Francis remembered the world’s many marginalized people, displaced persons, and refugees, lamenting the fact that no one wants to take responsibility for their fate.
On Friday, the European Union and Turkey agreed that all migrants – including Syrians – entering Greece by sea from Turkey after Sunday will be returned.
The head of Amnesty’s European Union office, Iverna McGowan, said Monday that the deal struck in Brussels last week “is seriously legally and morally flawed”.
“The locals are starting to fear what the migrants will do when they run out of money”, Goudenoudis said. The returns to Turkey are set to begin on April 4.
The deal was created to cut off the main route for refugees and send all boats arriving on Greek islands back to Turkey.
European Union officials have stressed that each application for asylum will be treated individually, with full rights of appeal and proper oversight. That represents around 90 percent of the total arrivals since January.
And in Turkey, at least 200 people were caught in a coastal town and turned back as they tried to reach Greece ahead of the deadline, authorities said.
European leaders are being asked to dispatch troops to Greece – the cradle of democracy – to combat the spiralling migrant crisis.
“All those who have not accepted a no-fly zone and a zone cleared of terror in Syria, and everyone who complains about the refugees are two-faced and hypocritical”, the Turkish president said.
Thousands of Afghans and Iraqis may escape deportation to Turkey as the EU’s €6 billion (£4.7 billion) deal descended into chaos.
If an individual chooses to claim asylum in Greece, and that claim is successful, they can stay in Greece. Migrants are also hidden in trucks or in overcrowded vans – and many end up being double-crossed by the smugglers and never reach their destinations.
Greece’s conservative opposition criticized the Turkish arrivals as Athens and Ankara have ongoing boundary disputes in the Aegean Sea, AP reported.
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Now, though, with countries to the north having shut their borders and a new arrangement in place, it finds itself obliged to host over 50,000 refugees stranded in Greece.
