14 April 2020
"In March 2016, EU leaders and Turkey issued a joint statement declaring that migrants travelling from Turkey to any Greek island would be returned back to Turkey. Following this, Greek authorities imposed a restriction of stay on all new arrivals, under which no-one could leave the islands, thus leaving thousands stranded. The number of asylum seekers soon exceeded the capacity of the Reception and Identification Centers (also known as hot-spots)."
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"With no space in these centers, the living conditions inside them quickly deteriorated. Additionally, countless asylum seekers had to live in deplorable conditions outside. Thus, thousands of asylum seekers—who were already in a precarious status to begin with—were forced to live in conditions violating their dignity in formal and makeshift camps at the edge or near the islands’ capitals."
The situation in the Greek islands four years after the EU-Turkey statement (Border Criminologies, link)
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