Right of asylum

The European Union has extended temporary protection for Ukrainian refugees until March 4, 2026. This decision comes amidst ongoing Russian bombings, highlighted by Belgium's Secretary of State for Refugees and Migration, Nicole de Moor, who leads the negotiations for this extension.

The United Nations' refugee and migration agencies on Friday criticized Greece's failure over the past year to shed light on one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea that left hundreds dead.

The number of people forced to flee their place of residence either within their country or to migrate across borders has been steadily increasing for the last 12 years, according to the UNHCR's annual report on refugees for 2023 published Wednesday and seen by Kathimerini.

Displaced Palestinians gather near a makeshift camp in the area of Tel al-Sultan in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024,

A staggering total of 120 million people are living forcibly displaced by war, violence and persecution, the U.N. said Thursday, branding the ever-increasing number a "terrible indictment on the state of the world."

Refugee accommodation facilities and the Asylum Service have no interpreters as the Migration and Asylum Ministry has not renewed their contracts.

The interpreters have not been paid in months by the relevant departments of the ministry, creating major problems in the operation of refugee facilities.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in collaboration with partners, is launching today the Compass Bulgaria Network of Protection and Inclusion Centres, a joint initiative in six refugee-hosting cities in Bulgaria spanning Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas, Varna, Dobrich, and Ruse.

Attacks against migrants, refugees and LGBT people in Greece surged to their highest level in nearly a decade last year, a report by the Athens-based Racist Violence Recording Network (RVRN) has found.

The network recorded 158 attacks in 2023, up from 74 in 2022. Of those, 89 targeted migrants, refugees or asylum seekers and 61 targeted LGBT people, it said.

The U.N. called Tuesday on Britain to reconsider plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, warning it threatened the rule of law and set "a perilous precedent globally".

The U.K. government's controversial Rwanda scheme has been beset by legal challenges since 2022, but was passed by parliament late on Monday after a marathon tussle between the upper and lower chambers.

A week after Cyprus suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrians due to a sharp increase in arrivals, the president of the Mediterranean island, Nikos Christodoulides, warned that the EU country cannot accommodate more refugees from the war-torn country.

In a decisive move, the Bulgarian Parliament has approved a measure to bolster security at all centers for migrants and refugees under the jurisdiction of the State Agency for Refugees. The decision, reached in the second reading, signifies a concerted effort to enhance safety and stability amidst growing concerns over incidents involving foreign citizens.