Iraqi diaspora in Europe

France and Spain currently represent around 40 percent of the land destroyed in the EU in the first six months of the year

Greek police say they have detained three migrant traffickers, a Turk and two Iraqis near the Greece-Turkey border.

Greece, a frontline country for migrants fleeing to Europe from war and poverty, vowed on Wednesday to improve living conditions in its overcrowded island camps.

The European Union's tug of war over how to share out the burden of caring for asylum-seekers is not over, Slovakia's interior minister said on Friday after six months of trying unsuccessfully to bridge differences between member states.

Between April and June, 3,505 persons have applied for asylum in Bulgaria, a decrease of 13%, compared to the first quarter of 2016, announced Eurostat. Most of them are from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, reported BNR.

The Greek government is adamantly opposing the revival of a European Union rule that would allow the forcible return to its territory of asylum-seekers who entered the bloc via Greece — a path followed by more than a million people in the past two years.

A suffocating situation has been created in Greece with thousands of refugees and migrants being trapped in the country, after FYROM closing its border for Afghans refugees and allowing only Syrian and Iraqi refugees with passports or special note received from hotspots to enter the country.

Turkey has restricted entry visas for Iraqis in a bid to limit foreign fighters reaching its territory and stem the flow of migrants and refugees to Europe. 

The EU piled pressure on Greece on Feb. 11 over Europe's migrant crisis, telling Athens to improve conditions for refugees and to shore up its borders or risk a suspension of the bloc's passport-free zone.

UNHCR expressed on Tuesday its concern on the prevention of refugees from entering the EU and called on Bulgaria to investigate the deaths of two Iraqis at the border with Turkey.

This was announced by William Spindler, a spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at a news briefing on Tuesday.