More protests have been planned for next week on the Greek island of Chios after the local municipal council of the eastern Aegean island rejected government proposals to open a new, closed pre-departure center for migrants on the island.
After 75,000 migrant arrivals on the Greek shores in 2019, the country's and international authorities predict that the refugee crisis in Greece will continue in 2020. It's a case of new year, same challenge for Greece and the country's authorities as they continue to wrestle with the ongoing migrant crisis.
Several German state governments have said they would be prepared to take in refugee children from Greece. One state, Thuringia, has even suggested it would do so in the face of the refusal in Berlin.
Hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children on the Greek island of Lesbos are living in conditions that pose severe risks to their physical and mental well-being, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The Greek government announced plans to resettle children on the mainland, but aid organizations on Lesbos see little improvement so far.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has renewed calls on Germany and other countries to take in migrants and refugees currently stuck in Greece. At the same time, his government plans to expedite deportations in the new year.
Greece's national public health body and Doctors of the World are carrying out a 5-day vaccination program for children and teenagers at the Moria migrant camp on the island of Lesbos. Separately, new EU border agency Frontex regulations have come into force.
The number of migrants and refugees stuck on the Greek islands has peaked at above 40,000. The Greek government hopes that the introduction of new laws next year will help bring the numbers down — by deporting many asylum seekers back to Turkey.
Pope Francis is again establishing his own ‘humanitarian corridor’ from Greece to Italy. His latest decision is to send a close aide, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, to the Greek island of Lesbos to pick up 33 asylum seekers and bring them back to Rome.
In the latest attempt to ease the overcrowding in migrant camps on the Greek Aegean islands, over 350 migrants left Lesbos and Chios over the weekend. 10,000 migrants have been moved to mainland Greece since July, but given the unabated influx of migrants from Turkey, that effort is not nearly enough.
Children make up over 45% of the people living in and around Greece's infamous Moria camp. These thousands of children are living in unbearable conditions and with very few facilities. InfoMigrants takes a closer look at some of the basic amenities that are there for Moria's children.
Migrants housed in Greece's island camps are living "in utter chaos and without any dignity," Doctors Without Borders says. The charity described one camp on Chios where 300 people are forced to share a single toilet.
Greece is to close the migrant camps on the islands and replace them with closed detention centers, the government announced on Wednesday. The new centers, planned for next year, would make it easier to control the flow of asylum seekers.