Asylum seeker

The Greek police have been bringing in asylum seekers living in the country and expelling them to Turkey by force while using the coronavirus pandemic as a cover for their abuses, according to a report published on May 20. 

Turkey on May 20 slammed a statement by Margaritis Schinas, European Commission Vice President for Promoting Our European Way of Life, about the country and migration, saying it was more like the political discourses of members of the Greek government than of a European Union official.

Police in northern Greece say migrants at a holding site near the country's border with Turkey have staged violent protests following weeks of delays in processing their asylum claims due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Authorities said the protests also involved unaccompanied minors at the closed facility which currently houses some 250 asylum seekers. No injuries were reported.

A group of 50 refugees and asylum seekers flew from Greece to Britain on Monday to reunite with relatives in a transfer that had been held up by the coronavirus lockdown.

A group of 20 non-governmental organizations have sent a joint petition to Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis, arguing that a bill recently passed into law undermines the rights of asylum seekers in Greece.

Some spoke of dire conditions in the centre and the growth of gangs stealing from and assaulting other residents.

Others, migrants trying to reach Western Europe, said they had been left out in the cold despite seeking refuge at the centre, its doors closed under a lockdown across the country to confront the coronavirus pandemic.

The tension was palpable at the weekend at migrant facilities on the eastern Aegean islands of Lesvos, Samos and Chios, with asylum seekers frustrated as they are not permitted to move outside the camps and are forced to wait in line for hours for food as a result of the problems created by the coronavirus restrictions.

In 2019, 13 800 asylum seekers applying for international protection in the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU) were considered to be unaccompanied minors, nearly 20% fewer than in 2018 (16 800), continuing the downward trend that started after the peak year 2015 (92 000). In 2019, at the EU level, unaccompanied minors accounted for 7% of all asylum applicants aged less than 18.

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. 

Ten officers from the Greek Police's headquarters (GADA) in Athens and a police station in Oropos, east Attica, were placed in quarantine on Thursday after it was revealed that they had come into contact with an asylum seeker who tested positive for the novel coronavirus.