Asylum seeker

Seeking to ensure that asylum seekers arriving on the Greek islands from Turkey have access to the public health system, the government is reportedly planning to provide them with a provisional number after the new year rather than a social security number (AMKA).

Police on the Greek island of Samos on Dec. 19 fired tear gas to disperse asylum-seekers protesting dismal conditions at their severely overcrowded camp, state agency ANA said.

The mainly African asylum-seekers blocked a road near the camp and threw stones at police, the agency said.

With asylum seekers on the Aegean islands numbering more than 40,000 and increasing daily, the requirements for food supplies at reception and identification centers have also shot through the roof.
Tellingly, according to recent data, it cost 499,419.60 euros to feed more than 17,000 people over the five days between November 29 to December 3 at the Lesvos center alone.

Greece will shut down overcrowded refugee camps on its outlying islands and replace them with more restrictive holding centers, authorities said on Wednesday.
Living conditions for thousands of people in camps on five Aegean islands have been decried by aid groups as appalling. The country is currently struggling with a resurgence in migrant and refugee arrivals.

The locals of southern Hatay province have always been hospitable towards Syrian refugees and asylum seekers yet still want Syria to accomplish peace so that the "guests" can safely return to their homeland, Hatay's Mayor Lütfü Savaş has said.

No country can manage migration without help, conservative former prime minister Costas Karamanlis said on Wednesday in a speech at an event of the Costas Grammenos Centre for Shipping, Trade and Finance in London.

It increases the number of people who will have to undergo border admissibility procedures before they can submit a proper asylum request. Even unaccompanied children and other vulnerable asylum seekers could be examined in future under accelerated procedures; PTSD is scrapped from the list of conditions that entitle applicants to obtain vulnerable status.

A European human rights watchdog on Thursday slammed living conditions as "horrible" for thousands of asylum seekers in overcrowded Greek camps, including waits spanning several hours for food and toilets and a lack of access to medicine.

Human rights groups urged Greece on Tuesday to scrap plans they say will restrict access to protection for asylum seekers as the government said the burden of dealing with an influx of migrants was getting too heavy to bear.

Greece should scrap a draft law that threatens to restrict access to protection for asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday.

Athens is currently struggling with the biggest resurgence in refugee arrivals since 2015, when more than a million people crossed into Europe from Turkey via Greece.