European countries have failed to uphold a pledge to help Greece cope with the fallout from the EU-Turkey deal, relocating less than 3.5% of the refugees they promised to accept when the deal was first agreed.
According to figures released by the EU this week, just 208 refugees have been relocated from Greece to other countries in Europe since 16 March, a small fraction of the 6,000 that European countries promised to welcome by this point. It is an even smaller proportion of the 160,000 that EU members promised to relocate from Greece and Italy last September.
The slow progress leaves Greece bearing the brunt of the deal, which involves detaining all asylum seekers arriving in Greece from 20 March onwards.
Coupled with the closure of the Macedonian border, which once allowed most migrants to move onwards to northern Europe, this has led to a logjam of about 50,000 asylum seekers in Greece, which does not have the resources to care for them.
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s migration commissioner, said in a statement: “We cannot be satisfied with the results achieved so far. Relocation efforts have to be increased dramatically to reply to the urgent humanitarian situation in Greece and to prevent any deterioration of the situation in Italy.”
Aid workers and lawyers say the situation for the detained asylum- seekers in Greece is dire, with many of them without access to adequate legal representation. Thirteen are already feared to have been deported without being given the chance to apply for asylum.
This week, one Greek lawyer said that he was being consistently denied access to clients in the Moria detention centre on the island of Lesbos. “Someone must inform the police … about the rights of the people that are detained in that camp,” said Emmanouil Chatzichalkias in a written statement.
Responding to the situation on Friday, three major aid groups – Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Solidarity Now – called for deportations from Greece to Turkey to be halted, and for detained asylum seekers to be freed.
Explaining the call, Farah Karimi, Oxfam’s executive director, said: “Thousands of people are being held in squalid European detention centres. Shame on the EU for prioritising detention and deportation over people’s rights to safety and dignity. The returns deal was pushed through to the detriment of these stranded, suffering people.”
