Aftermath of war

Twenty illegal migrants - five Georgians and 15 Pakistanis - were returned to their home countries on flights from Athens International Airport on Tuesday, authorities said on Friday.
The flights to Tbilisi and Islamabad followed the repatriation of 12 Pakistani and six Georgians on January 9.

Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas on Tuesday admitted that the camp on Samos has the "biggest problems" among the reception and identification centers operating on the Greek islands, saying that efforts are being made to transfer migrants to more suitable facilities on the mainland or, if necessary to other islands where conditions are marginally better.

Bulgaria repatriated 894 illegal immigrants last year, less than half of the 2017 number which stood at 1,903, a report of the country's interior ministry revealed on Friday.

Among them, 332 foreigners were forcibly returned, 298 left within programs for assisted voluntary return, and 80 left voluntarily at their expense, the report said.

Only seven of 1,500 refugees that Greece agreed to take back from Germany as part of a bilateral agreement in August have been returned, according to data from the German Interior Ministry.

The deal concerned refugees in Germany who had originally applied for asylum in Greece.

The Greek chapter of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has published a letter in which a 16-year-old Syrian boy expresses his desperation over the deplorable conditions of a migrant camp in the northern border region of Evros.

The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre says Serbia has made little progress in implementing its own national strategy on the prosecution of war crimes.

The Hellenic Army's Land Mine Clearance Squad (TENX) recovered a total of 106 missiles, 42 hand grenades and 13 land mines dating to various conflicts from different parts of the country as part of a clearance operation last month, defense officials said on Wednesday.

The munitions were all destroyed in controlled procedures by TENX experts.

Britain has granted permanent residency to a group of refugees who have been stranded for 20 years on a UK military base in Cyprus.

The Leigh Day law firm that represents the refugees said Monday that the government settled the case involving 31 members of six families just before it was to be heard by the Supreme Court.

Syrian refugees living in the southern Turkish province of Osmaniye have been growing vegetables in a newly set up greenhouse next to their refugee camp, which hosts 15,000 people, as part of a project launched by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

An Iranian refugee who was detained in Turkey while trying to travel to Spain with a fake passport has been ordered by a Turkish court to report on the similarities between the Quran and the Bible following his claim that he could be persecuted at home for converting to Christianity.