Refugee

The speaker of UNHCR in Bulgaria Boris Cheshirkov said on Tuesday that the past year has been unsuccessful for the integration of refugees in the country.

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As many as 120 Iraqi asylum seekers stormed a Turkish border crossing into Bulgaria, prompting authorities to close it for two hours on Sunday evening.

The Kapikule checkpoint, bordering Bulgaria's south-east and leading to the Kapitan Andreevo crossing, was attacked at about 18:30 EET, private national channel bTV quotes officials as saying.

A lot of the credit must goes to Turkish citizens, said Kamal Malhotra, the U.N.’s envoy to Ankara regarding Turkey’s hosting of at least 1.6 million Syrian refugees.

Leftist SYRIZA opposition has criticized a pre-dawn police operation to remove dozens of Syrian refugees who had been camped out at Syntagma Square in central Athens for the past three weeks.

Out of a total of 330 Syrian refugees, among them children, sleeping rough on Syntagma Square for nearly three weeks, 50 have accepted an offer of shelter from the City of Athens and will be applying for asylum in Greece rather than continuing their protest in demand of papers allowing them to leave the country for northern Europe.

The United Nations Refugee Agency warned that the international community was faced with increasing difficulties to respond to the growing number of people making dangerous sea journeys in search of asylum or migration.

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After nearly three weeks of sleeping in makeshift tents on Syntagma Square, a protest by 330 Syrian refugees seeking permission to travel to Northern Europe appeared closer to a resolution Wednesday after 40 members of the group applied for asylum in Greece.

The U.N.'s human rights chief on Dec. 10 condemned rich nations for their indifference to waves of global migration, after new figures showed more than 3,400 people died in the Mediterranean this year trying to reach Europe.

More than 3,400 people have died in the Mediterranean this year trying to reach Europe, the UN refugee agency said Wednesday, urging governments to take more action to save lives.

More than 207,000 people have made the risky sea crossing since January, almost three times the previous high of 70,000 during the Libyan civil war in 2011, the UNHCR said.

The European Union on Tuesday announced 10 million euros ($12.3 million) in new humanitarian aid for Syrian civilians in Turkey and Syria.