Forced migration

A government bid to move thousands of refugees out of state facilities and subsidized accommodation to make room for new asylum seekers is stalling as only very few people have departed, Kathimerini understands.

The Turkish Coast Guard rescued 100 asylum seekers off the Aegean Sea coast of Çanakkale town, security sources said on June 6.

The asylum seekers of different nationalities wanted to cross to Mytilene Island of Greece.

The government has earmarked over 200 apartments for sale under this law and announced evictions in this poor neighbourhood of the capital, which is home to about 1,600 people, of whom 80 per cent are of immigrant background and of a mostly poor socio-economic status.

The European Commission on June 3 proposes to release a payment of €485 million ($545 million) for Turkey to support Syrian refugees in 2020.

The institution presented a budget amendment on June 3 suggesting "to top up support for refugees and host communities in response to the Syria crisis by a total of €585 million."

Turkey has successfully passed the "migration" test by hosting millions of refugees on its soils for years, while even the most developed nations have failed in doing so, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has said at an online opening of the International Migration Films Festival.

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.

It is a crisis waiting to happen: About 11,000 refugees who have been granted asylum in Greece are still housed in reception facilities.

If they are made to leave their accommodation, the majority of them will end up in the streets.

The Greek police have been bringing in asylum seekers living in the country and expelling them to Turkey by force while using the coronavirus pandemic as a cover for their abuses, according to a report published on May 20. 

A group of 50 refugees and asylum seekers flew from Greece to Britain on Monday to reunite with relatives in a transfer that had been held up by the coronavirus lockdown.

A person wears a protective face mask as a precaution against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) as refugees and migrants from overcrowded migrant camps who will be transferred to Britain where they will reunite with their families, board their flight at Athens International Airport, Monday. [Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters]