International Organization for Migration

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.

The Greek government is planning stricter controls on how migrants slated for deportation come and go from two camps that are currently in quarantine due to coronavirus outbreaks.

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, which manages temporary reception centres, TRCs, for migrants and refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina, told BIRN it had found no cases of coronavirus among the roughly 6,500 migrants held in them.

Amid an ongoing dispute over a Constitutional Court ruling that has angered Bosnian Serb politicians, Milorad Dodik, the Serbian member of the state presidency, has stopped Bosnia from signing up to a status agreement with the European Union border agency, Frontex.

A shortage of border guards may be hampering Bosnia's ability to stop migrants from illegally entering the country, officials say.

The rulebook on its internal organisation says the Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina should have 2,426 officers, but currently has only 2,038, which is 388 less, Franka Vican, a spokeswoman for the state border police, told BIRN.

The European Union will be prepared in case of any migration wave from Libya amid crisis in the region, a European Union official said on Jan. 15.

About 1,000 migrants have been returned to Libya in the past two weeks, according to a statement issued by The UN Migration Agency (IOM), quoted by the DPA.

At least 12 people died on Jan. 11 when a boat loaded with asylum-seekers sank in the Ionian Sea, the Greek coastguard said.

"So far 12 bodies have been recovered. The search and rescue operation continues," the coastguard said.

Over 1,000 asylum applicants will be transferred from islands of the northeastern Aegean to the mainland in the next three days, according to sources speaking to state-run Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
The refugees will all be distributed to hotels throughout Greece, the same sources said.