Forced migration

It is a crisis waiting to happen: About 11,000 refugees who have been granted asylum in Greece are still housed in reception facilities.

If they are made to leave their accommodation, the majority of them will end up in the streets.

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. 

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 person wears a protective face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) as refugees and migrants from overcrowded migrant camps who will be transferred to Britain where they will reunite with their families, board their flight at Athens International Airport, Monday. [Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters]

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.

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.

Conflict and disaster forced more than 33 million people to flee within their own countries last year, putting them at greater risk amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, monitors said on April 28.    

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. 

Switzerland has agreed to take in 22 unaccompanied migrant children from Greece, it was announced Thursday following a telephone conversation between Alternate Minister of Migration and Asylum Giorgos Koumoutsakos and his Swiss counterpart Mario Gattiker.
Switzerland said it will also contribute 1.1 million Swiss francs to support Greece in managing the migrant/refugee crisis.