Published : 22-11-2020
Greece, on the front line of migration into Europe, promised earlier this month to build new reception centres for asylum seekers and cut the maximum stay in camps on its now-overcrowded islands.
According to Reuters, authorities will have finished the construction of better-equipped camps on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos by the autumn of 2021, Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said. None of the asylum seekers would be on an island for more than six months.
“In 12 months from today we should not have any of the legacy reception system we are seeing today,” Mitarachi told a news conference called to present the country’s migration strategy over the next two years.
Authorities were restructuring the asylum service to introduce remote and digital applications in order to faster process a backlog of about 87,000 asylum requests, he said.
In September, a fire razed Greece’s largest migrant camp on Lesbos, leaving about 12,000 people stranded. Most of them have now been moved to a temporary tent camp.
The conservative New Democracy government, elected in July 2019, has taken a tougher stance towards migration than its left-wing predecessors. It has placed limits on an appeals process which previously took months or years to navigate.
More than 4,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria have sought shelter in Greece, where they live in filthy and overcrowded temporary camps, some for months or years.
Greece, on the front line of migration into Europe, promised earlier this month to build new reception centres for asylum seekers and cut the maximum stay in camps on its now-overcrowded islands.
According to Reuters, authorities will have finished the construction of better-equipped camps on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos by the autumn of 2021, Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said. None of the asylum seekers would be on an island for more than six months.
“In 12 months from today we should not have any of the legacy reception system we are seeing today,” Mitarachi told a news conference called to present the country’s migration strategy over the next two years.
Authorities were restructuring the asylum service to introduce remote and digital applications in order to faster process a backlog of about 87,000 asylum requests, he said.
In September, a fire razed Greece’s largest migrant camp on Lesbos, leaving about 12,000 people stranded. Most of them have now been moved to a temporary tent camp.
The conservative New Democracy government, elected in July 2019, has taken a tougher stance towards migration than its left-wing predecessors. It has placed limits on an appeals process which previously took months or years to navigate.
More than 4,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria have sought shelter in Greece, where they live in filthy and overcrowded temporary camps, some for months or years.
