Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe 2.11.16
01 October 2016
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Alarm over effectiveness of EU-Turkey refugee deal grows in Brussels (euractiv, link):
"Some seven months after the European Union and Turkey struck an agreement to turn back the tide of Syrians fleeing west, very few refugees have been sent back from Greece, and Brussels is losing its patience as overcrowded camps grow violent.
The agreement reached in March was designed to reduce the number of migrants crossing into Europe from Turkey, after more than a million people arrived in Europe last year, most reaching Greek islands by boat and continuing by land to Germany.... Balkan countries along the land route north closed their borders, so that migrants who once poured across Greece to reach other parts of Europe are now trapped there and prevented from pressing on."
And see: EU Commission is losing patience with Greece as overcrowded refugee camps there grow violent (Keep Talking Greece, link):
"What a self-deluding arrogance. The EU is apparently losing patience with Greece as “overcrowded refugee camps that turn violent” and Athens do not keep the terms of the EU Turkey deal to send refugees back to Turkey....
Migrants, refugees all in one bag, in the same bag with ‘cruel bureaucracy’, shortage of ‘interpreters’ and ‘asylum experts’ and ‘overcrowded camps’ and lots of ‘inefficient Greeks’, but I read no word about the EU Commission funds allocated to NGOs and the UNHCR, neither do I see a sentence mentioning the xenophobic EU-member-states stubbornly refusing to take refugees from Greece AND Italy in their countries."And also: Refugees languish in Greek limbo as alarm grows in Brussels (Reuters, link)
"In May and much to the surprise of many, especially asylum seekers and concerned citizens, the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) announced that countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia were safe to return asylum seekers.
Migrant Tales reported in September about Mohammed Khulbus Idnan’s return to “safe” Iraq after waiting for a year for his residence permit without luck. He returned to Baghdad to be at his mother’s side since she was going to die. He returned and was lucky: He got shot six times and survived.
Two other persons weren’t as lucky as Khulbus Idnan when they returned in summer to “safe” Iraq. Both of them were killed by bombs."
"Since 2013, Welcome to Europe (w2eu) and Youth Without Borders (JOG) organise journeys for young refugees, to make it possible for them to return to the place where they had first reached Europe: The Island of Lesvos/Greece. This year, the ‘back to the border’ journey turned into a horror trip, especially, for all of us who were without European identity cards...
This year we returned to Lesvos to support the more than 6,000 people who are stuck, since months, in the prison labelled nicely “Hot Spot” in EU-jargon and in Kara Tepe, an open tent camp run and controlled by the local government. These people cannot leave the island due to the dirty EU-Turkey deal and simply because they are humans who do not possess the right papers.
Nowadays, all those travellers who are not white and not European are being subjected to racist controls. Even a member of the European Parliament, who is black was controlled for two hours recently. Lesbos Island was turned into a prison since March 20th and has become as a whole a border with heavy controls and high fences, which is the opposite of a cosy and beautiful tourist attraction."
Greece: Three refugees injured in fire at Oraiokastro camp (ekathimerini.com, link): "Three Syrian refugees were injured in a fire at the refugee camp of Oraiokastro, near the northern Greek town of Thessaloniki, in the early hours of Wednesday."
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