• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, February 6, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

Migrants on Greek Islands ‘on Edge of Catastrophe:’ Council of Europe

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
10/31/19
in Featured, Refugees, World
A man and a boy cry after police fire tear gas in a refugee camp in Lesbos (Greece). At least one woman and one child have died in a fire during riots with the police. Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis.

A man and a boy cry after police fire tear gas in a refugee camp in Lesbos (Greece). At least one woman and one child have died in a fire during riots with the police. Photo: Angelos Tzortzinis. AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The situation for migrants in camps on Greek islands is “explosive” and “on the edge of catastrophe,” the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights said Thursday.

Greece has once again become the main point of entry for people seeking asylum in Europe and it is struggling to accommodate them despite the availability of E.U. funds.

“The situation of migrants, including asylum seekers, in the Greek Aegean islands has dramatically worsened over the past 12 months,” Dunja Mijatovic told reporters at the end of a five-day visit.

“Urgent measures are needed to address the desperate conditions in which thousands of human beings are living. What we see in practice is telling me that human rights are not respected. This is an unacceptable situation,” she said.

With parliament scheduled to approve a tougher new migration law later Thursday, the government has said it has some 75,000 asylum requests to process.

Mijatovic said there are an estimated 100,000 refugees and migrants in the country.

Despite regular relocations to the mainland, there are over 34,000 people living in overcrowded Greek island camps.

The government has pledged to move 20,000 of them to camps on the mainland before the end of the year.

‘Struggle for Survival’ 

Mijatovic, who visited camps on the islands of Lesbos and Samos and in Corinth, said she was “appalled” by the unhygienic conditions in which asylum-seekers live on the islands.

“There is a crying lack of medical care and sanitation in the vastly overcrowded camps I have visited. People queue for hours to get food and to go to bathrooms, when they exist,” she said.

“On Samos, families are chipping away rocks to make some space on steep hillsides to set up their makeshift shelters, often made by trees they cut themselves. This no longer has anything to do with the reception of asylum seekers. This has become a struggle for survival.”

Mijatovic urged Greek authorities to accelerate transfers out of the islands and boost local hospitals which are currently unable to handle the strain.

She also called on other E.U. states to help in more ways than just financially, by accepting more asylum-seekers, particularly unaccompanied minors who now number over 4,000.

“The solidarity Greece needs is not there … I’m talking about real actions, other European countries taking the responsibility as well,” she said.

“People are suffering tremendously. It’s not something I can continue watching without raising my voice … what I can assess is that there is not enough political will” among “certain” other E.U. states, the commissioner said.

“In a way, we are failing to show that Europe is still a place where human rights are respected. It’s not just Greece.”

In her home country of Bosnia, there are some 10,000 asylum-seekers in a camp near a minefield, Mijatovic said.

Greece’s new conservative government, which took over in July, has vowed to tighten asylum rules, step up naval patrols to deter migrant boats and to send 10,000 people back to Turkey next year.

There have been clashes between different migrant groups and between migrants and the police.

The Greek parliament on Thursday is to adopt a new migration law enshrining the policy changes, but Mijatovic says the draft she saw “raises concerns from a human rights perspective.”

Human rights groups have also criticized the bill, saying it introduces stricter rules for receiving asylum seekers, delays access to the right to work, narrows the definition of family, and imposes more burdens on torture victims in being recognized as such.


More on the Subject 

Four Years On, Migration Crisis Stokes Desperation On Greece’s Lesbos

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Greek Immigration Minister Notis Mitarachi
Refugees

Greece Denies Turkey Claims Over Six Migrants Killed at Sea

by Staff Writer
September 14, 2022
A demonstrator sprays paint over an upside-down portrait of Chinese leader Xi Jinping
World

China Use of Psychiatric Hospitals to Punish Activists ‘Widespread:’ Report

by Staff Writer
August 17, 2022
Greece migrants
Refugees

EU Border Agency ‘Covered Up’ Greece’s Illegal Migrant Pushbacks

by Staff Writer
July 28, 2022
Protestors hold signs as they gather during a rally for Uyghur Freedom
Featured

It’s Time We Give Corporations a Human Rights Scorecard

by Jianli Yang and Alvaro Piaggio
March 9, 2022
Poland border wall
Refugees

Poland Begins Work on New EU-Belarus Border Wall

by Staff Writer
January 25, 2022
migrants
Refugees

Hundreds of Rescued Migrants Disembark in Italy’s Sicily

by Staff Writer
December 29, 2021
Next Post
East Africa Reels From Deadly Floods In Extreme Weather

East Africa Reels From Deadly Floods In Extreme Weather

Hong Kong Plunges Into Recession As Protests, Trade War Take Toll

Hong Kong Plunges Into Recession As Protests, Trade War Take Toll

Recommended

Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

February 6, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
A supporter of nurses' strike and NHS holds a placard

UK Faces Fresh Mass Strikes as Wage Talks Derail

February 1, 2023
Israeli security forces in Jerusalem

Palestinian Gunman Kills 7 in East Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

January 30, 2023
The Doomsday Clock reads 100 seconds to midnight, a decision made by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, during an announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on January 23, 2020

‘Doomsday Clock’ Moves Closest Ever to Midnight

January 25, 2023
Police work near the scene of a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California

California Lunar New Year Mass Shooter Dead, Motive Unclear: Police

January 23, 2023

Opinion

Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Mahsa Amini protests

Imagining a Free Iran

October 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin

How 18th Century International Law Clarifies the Situation in Ukraine

September 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Falling for Putin

September 15, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post