United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

About 11,000 recognised refugees are facing an uncertain future as they will gradually have to leave their current accommodation facilities starting in June, as part of the Migration Policy Ministry's plan to replace them with asylum seekers from the islands, in a bid to decongest the local camps.

Despite a dip in arrivals of migrants from Turkey in recent months, the number of asylum seekers in Greece is significant, totaling 120,000, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency that was made public on Wednesday.

The Council of Ministers has allocated BGN 860 568 to international organizations with a leading role in the fight against COVID-19. These include the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNICEF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday discussed a program for the relocation of unaccompanied refugee minors from Greece to other European countries in a phone call with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday discussed a program for the relocation of unaccompanied refugee minors from Greece to other European countries in a phone call with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.

Switzerland has agreed to take in 22 unaccompanied migrant children from Greece, it was announced Thursday following a telephone conversation between Alternate Minister of Migration and Asylum Giorgos Koumoutsakos and his Swiss counterpart Mario Gattiker.
Switzerland said it will also contribute 1.1 million Swiss francs to support Greece in managing the migrant/refugee crisis.

Twenty unaccompanied refugee minors were scheduled to leave the overcrowded camp of Moria on Lesvos island on Tuesday for mainland Greece, from where they will depart for Germany and relocation there on April 18.
In addition, another 20 asylum applicants are also leaving for Piraeus through a program of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, to be housed in facilities on the mainland.

Europe's coast guard agency said on April 12 it was looking for a dinghy believed to be carrying dozens of migrants when it went missing after setting sail from Libya for Italy.

The U.N. refugee agency told AFP it was "very worried" about the fate of what could be 85 migrants lost in the Mediterranean Sea.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian and Syrian refugees living in overcrowded and rundown camps in Lebanon are bracing for the novel coronavirus as aid groups mobilize to help.    

Lebanon is home to tens of thousands of Palestinians in camps that over the decades have become bustling neighborhoods and at least 1.5 million Syrians who have fled the war next door.    

A facility belonging to a locally based non-governmental organization called Stand By Me Lesvos was destroyed in a fire in the early hours of Tuesday, local media on the eastern Aegean island have reported.