Maria Stavropoulou

Greece's Asylum Service, which operates under the Migration Ministry, was assigned a new chief on Thursday.

Markos Karavias, an assistant professor of international law specializing in immigration at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, is formally taking over the post during a particularly pressing period.

Just 16 percent of asylum seekers who undertook the journey to Greece can be returned to Turkey under Greek law and European directives, Maria Stavropoulou, the former head of the Greek asylum service, has told Kathimerini.

Thousands of asylum applications remain pending even though the influx of undocumented migrants into Greece from neighboring Turkey has plummeted over the past year.

A total of 2,627 migrants landed on the islands of the eastern Aegean from Turkey between January 1 and March 5 this year, according to government data. In the same period last year, that number was 121,426.

The Canadian Embassy in Greece, in collaboration with the City of Athens and with the participation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Solidarity Now and the Greek Film Archive, is hosting "Twice Trapped: Discrimination among Asylum Applicants," a special public event that will address the realities faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or intersex (LGBTI)

In the bid to ease pressure on the eastern Aegean islands, Athens is reportedly examining ways to allow the transfer of refugees and migrants to enclosed camps on the mainland without infringing on the deal signed between the European Union and Turkey in March aimed at containing flows.

By Costas Onisenko