Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

Asylum seekers stuck in Greece in dire conditions

  • Over 12,000 aslyum seekers wait at the Greek-Macedonian border in dire conditions (Photo: Fotomovimiento)

Greece has vowed to step up efforts to move people from the makeshift camp on the Macedonian border in Idomeni, as fears of disease rise and an image emerged of a baby being washed in a puddle.

Greek authorities have been handing out leaflets to tell the 12,000 people stuck at the Idomeni camp, thousands of them children, that the Balkan route to Germany is closed and convince them to move into better-equipped camps.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

But the people are becoming increasingly desperate and are waiting for EU leaders to find a solution to the crisis when they meet on Thursday and Friday (17-18 March).

Greek minister for refugees Dimitris Vitsas vowed to move people fleeing war and persecution in the Middle East to more permanent reception centres within a week.

The Greek authorities transferred 400 people to reception centres on Friday.

According to EU plans, Greece should have capacity for 50,000 people in the reception centres, 10,000 more than currently available.

The spread of infection became a concern in the filthy conditions of the camp with one person in a sprawling tent city diagnosed with hepatitis A.

Scuffles broke out over the weekend as people scrambled for food and firewood in the makeshift camp with many sleeping in the open.

"We are seeing human misery at its peak in Europe. These conditions here at the Idomeni border site are just unliveable," Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, was quoted as saying by AFP.

"It has just gone beyond imagination how bad it can get and each day we are getting more rain, people are suffering.”

Morally flawed

EU leaders are meeting later this week to sign off a deal agreed last Monday that would see Turkey take back asylum seekers from Greece in exchange for the EU taking refugees directly out of Turkey.

The EU has said it would add a further €3 billion to the initial €3 billion it has already promised to pay Turkey to care for the refugees.

It has also promised visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens by the summer, and open negotiating chapters for EU accession, measures that are highly controversial among EU members.

Making the EU-Turkey deal and the exchange of people legal also remains a challenge.

Under international law, asylum cases need to be examined individually where they were submitted.

The EU-Turkey deal would go around that by making Turkey a “safe” third country under a bilateral Greek-Turkish agreement, thus making sending back migrants legal.

Human rights groups are alarmed by the emerging EU-Turkey agreement.

"It's flawed, morally and legally," Amnesty International secretary general Salil Shetty told Reuters in Dubai.

Shetty is to meet France's interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve and European Council president Donald Tusk this week "to directly express our shock and outrage at what they are coming up with."

Shetty said: "They are saying it does not breach EU law because Turkey is a safe country. By what stretch of the imagination is Turkey a safe country for these people?"

Greece and Turkey intensify joint work on migrants

Greece and Turkey sign agreements to be able to send back migrants to Turkish soil, as Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia introduce tight restrictions, essentially shutting down the route for refugees.

UN 'deeply concerned' by EU-Turkey plan

The UN has spoken out against blanket returns to Turkey after EU leaders earlier Tuesday agreed to a provisional plan to start clearing Greek islands of irregular migrants.

Three people die after EU border clampdown

Germany says situation in Greece is unsustainable as first three people perish trying to get round new EU restrictions on the Western Balkan migratory route.

Greek government rocked by nationalist row

Just before the EU refugee summit, the defence minister and crucial ally to PM Tsipras wants the migration minister to resign after he used the disputed name Macedonia to refer to Greece’s neighbour.

Analysis

Election in sight, EU mood music changes on offshoring asylum

Designating a country like Rwanda as 'safe' under EU rules to send an asylum-seeker there requires strict conditions to be met first. But a backdoor clause introduced into EU legislation allows a future commission to strip out those requirements.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us