International Organization for Migration

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, has warned that it will cease to provide services at the Lipa camp for migrants and refugees by Wednesday if authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to fail to meet their commitments.

The arrival of migrants dropped 91 pct in May compared with the same month last year, according to data released by the Migration Policy Ministry on Thursday.

On four islands (Chios, Samos, Leros, Kos) there were no arrivals last month.

The Migration Ministry said Friday that it had "no knowledge" of a report by an international organization castigating its policy on and handling of migration, responding to a news story published in Kathimerini, though it failed to respond to the issues raised in the document.

An accommodation facility in the town of Kranidi, in southern Greece, was placed in lockdown for two weeks on Tuesday after three more migrants tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Greek health authorities said Tuesday.

The only people who will be allowed in the hotel are its employees, healthcare professionals and police and military officials.

Plans to relocate some 2,000 elderly and ailing asylum seekers from overcrowded migrant reception centers on the Aegean islands to facilities on the mainland could face obstacles as some residents and local authority officials oppose the move. 

As part of the government's plans to ease pressure at overcrowded migrant reception centers on the eastern Aegean islands, some 1,500 residents of the notoriously cramped Moria camp on Lesvos are to be transferred to the mainland on Saturday. 

The authorities in the Una-Sana Canton, in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration, moved a first group of about 120 migrants and refugees to the new reception centre in Lipa, not far from the town of Bihac, on Tuesday.

A total of 150 people in an accommodation facility in the town of Kranidi, in southern Greece, have tested positive for the new coronavirus, Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias told jousnalists after visiting the site on Tuesday.

Hardalias said 148 of these are refugees, one is an employee, and one is an aid worker. All patients are asymptomatic, he said.

An asylum seeker living at a Greek refugee facility has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, reports said Monday.

A dozen unaccompanied refugee and migrant minors were flown from Greece to Luxembourg on Wednesday as part of a European Union initiative to expedite the relocation of some 1,600 over the next few months to EU member-states.