Migrants in Greece living in 'horrible' conditions, says Europe rights watchdog

By Lefteris Papadimas

 

FILE PHOTO: A girl stands at the entrance of a tent, at a makeshift camp for refugees and migrants next to the Moria camp, following a rainfall on the island of Lesbos, Greece, October 8, 2019. REUTERS/Elias Marcou

 

ATHENS (Reuters) - A European human rights watchdog on Thursday slammed living conditions as "horrible" for thousands of asylum seekers in overcrowded Greek camps, including waits spanning several hours for food and toilets and a lack of access to medicine.

 

Dunja Mijatovic, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, said she had witnessed people queuing for food or to use a bathroom for more than three hours at refugee camps for asylum seekers on two Greek islands.

 

"The people I have met are living in horrible conditions and an unbearable limbo," she told a news briefing, saying the migrants were struggling to cope with overcrowding, lack of shelter, poor hygiene conditions and substandard access to medical care.

 

Greece is currently struggling with the biggest resurgence in refugee arrivals since 2015, when more than a million people crossed into Europe from Turkey via Greece. About 34,000 asylum seekers and refugees are currently being held in camps on the Aegean islands close to Turkey.

 

Although the conservative government has started moving more people to the mainland, the surge in migrant arrivals means they are being replaced as quickly as they depart.

 

"I saw children with skin diseases not treated. I heard about no medications or drugs at all available to these people. No access to health, no proper access to health and many other things that are really quite shocking for Europe in the 21st century," Mijatovic said.

 

The government has broadly blamed the overcrowding on a haphazard approach by the former leftist administration, which lost the election held in July. It plans to move as many as 20,000 asylum seekers to the mainland by the end of the year.

 

Late on Thursday, the Greek parliament approved legislation amending the asylum process, a bill which rights groups say could restrict protection for asylum seekers.

 

 

The government says the new legislation seeks to codify and clarify what are now a disparate set of rules into one rulebook, and to deport those whose applications have been rejected.

 

Several NGOs, and the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, have expressed misgivings about the legislation, saying it weakens the protection of refugees.

 

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament before the vote that the bill was also meant to send a clear message:

 

"Enough is enough, enough with those people who know that they are not entitled to asylum and yet they attempt to cross into and stay in our country," he said.

 

"Those people will be quickly returned to Turkey... or to their country and will lose all the money they gave the despicable traffickers".

 

(Reporting By Lefteris Papadimas, writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Richard Pullin)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-11-01

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Off-topic, troll posts removed.  

 

Then Europe should help Greece/Italy/Spain to protect their borders...It's easy to complain from far away and doing nothing to protect the EU borders....

 

Also the EU should send ALL illegal immigrants back, in Holland they refuse to do that and even let them squat buildings while giving them money to live....

maybe fleeing one broke country to head to another wasn't the best choice ? 

 

correct me if i am wrong but has greece not been in financial turmoil for nearly a decade.

9 hours ago, webfact said:

Greece is currently struggling with the biggest resurgence in refugee arrivals since 2015, when more than a million people crossed into Europe from Turkey via Greece.

The US is destabilizing countries in the middle east in a geopolitical game to weaken Israeli adversaries creating a flood of refugees,and   Greece is doing its best to mitigate a problem not of their own making, 

Greece is a small country population 10.7 million people. One million refugees means that almost 1 in ten people in Greece were refugees. 

 Those who have broken the countries providing the refugees need to step up and own the problem they have created. 

Hasn,t Greece got enough financial problems due to its membership to the eu and the euro?your average Greek citizen would leave the eu tomorrow .

27 minutes ago, kingdong said:

Hasn,t Greece got enough financial problems due to its membership to the eu and the euro?your average Greek citizen would leave the eu tomorrow .

Yes indeed PART of Greece's (hellenic republic) problems were created by EU policy to recover odious debt from the wrong people but at the same time has forced the necessary reforms to prevent the recurrence of such behaviour leaving Greece ready   poised to reamerge a much stronger healthier economy.

It's last bond issue  was at negative rates. 

In addition , Greece is a very small country with hostile neighbors to the east, as such it is much safer with in the EU .

 

Poor old Greece ( literally ) as if they didn't have enough problems of their own ( albeit self inflicted ).

 

They really should be given a lot more financial assistance from the EC to  help in sheltering these refugees until it is safe for them to return home.

Greece has had its own problems without needing a bunch of refugees to help

it sink further into debt. I heard that Greeks have free medical coverage as the

country is a bit leaning toward a social government system. Maybe a touch of corruption, like a bunch of the rich owning back yard pools that are not being claimed on taxes

and other reasons for their financial woes.  The refugee problem is not helping in the

least for sure.

Geezer

Numerous, nasty, off-topic, troll posts and replies removed.   Continue and you will face a suspension.  

 

Europe is in a terrible mess, but it is pretty much forbidden to discuss either the structural problems of the EU or illegal migration.

The hysteria around the UK population's decision to leave the EU, something which should have been fairly straightforward once it was decided, has successfully obscured the growing economic problems of the EU itself. There is even a small but real possibility that the EU will collapse before the UK manages to leave.

The sheer scale of Greece's current migrant problems is largely thanks to the Angela Merkel's surprise decision, made without consulting her cabinet colleagues, to promise that any migrants who made it across the Mediterranean would be allowed to stay in Germany. This will go down in history as the worst decision by any German politician since the decision to invade Russia.

Without the news footage that summer of angry young men flooding into Europe, the Leave side would not have won the Brexit referendum. Losing one of the few net contributor countries makes it significantly harder for the remaining EU countries to prop up the illusion that it is a cohesive block.

One of the most visible results is that buffer countries such as Italy and Greece have been left to deal with the remnants of Merkel's bad decision with little real help from the EU. It is an open secret that Italy's banking system is a complete car crash, a potentially far more expensive problem than anything Greece ever had, the EU is in real trouble if Italy starts to slip.

 

 

11 hours ago, kingdong said:

Hasn,t Greece got enough financial problems due to its membership to the eu and the euro?your average Greek citizen would leave the eu tomorrow .

No they wouldn't. In fact, even during the height of the financial crisis most Greeks wanted to stay not just in the Eu but in the eurozone itself. I think the attachment is irrational but it's also a fact.

8 hours ago, Denim said:

Poor old Greece ( literally ) as if they didn't have enough problems of their own ( albeit self inflicted ).

 

They really should be given a lot more financial assistance from the EC to  help in sheltering these refugees until it is safe for them to return home.

Yes. A big problem is that while the EU requires the border nations to detain illegal immigrants, it offers no financial assistance. 

Might deter more of these Illegal immigrants from coming!

Economic refugees – mostly groups of healthy young men????????

5 hours ago, jack7106 said:

Economic refugees – mostly groups of healthy young men????????

Can we have a link?

On 11/1/2019 at 6:45 PM, sirineou said:

The US is destabilizing countries in the middle east in a geopolitical game to weaken Israeli adversaries creating a flood of refugees,and   Greece is doing its best to mitigate a problem not of their own making, 

Greece is a small country population 10.7 million people. One million refugees means that almost 1 in ten people in Greece were refugees. 

 Those who have broken the countries providing the refugees need to step up and own the problem they have created. 

Start with making Tony Blair put some up in his spare rooms

4 minutes ago, Sujo said:

Can we have a link?

just look at the pictures in the papers of all the illegals being picked up ,you dont need a link .

On 11/1/2019 at 10:52 PM, Denim said:

Poor old Greece ( literally ) as if they didn't have enough problems of their own ( albeit self inflicted ).

 

They really should be given a lot more financial assistance from the EC to  help in sheltering these refugees until it is safe for them to return home.

Return home being the important part

 

If *migrants* don't like it in Greece, they are welcome to go back to wherever they came from.

On 11/1/2019 at 11:45 AM, sirineou said:

The US is destabilizing countries in the middle east in a geopolitical game to weaken Israeli adversaries creating a flood of refugees,and   Greece is doing its best to mitigate a problem not of their own making, 

Greece is a small country population 10.7 million people. One million refugees means that almost 1 in ten people in Greece were refugees. 

 Those who have broken the countries providing the refugees need to step up and own the problem they have created. 

Anti American and Anti Israeli propaganda. Countless countries such as Ethiopia,  Eritrea,  Tunisia etcetc are grotesquely mismanaged. Nothing to do with American influence. As for the numerous muslim illegal immigrants...there is plenty of room and wealth in Saudi and Kuwait. Israel has given more Arabs voting rights than any Arab country

1 minute ago, sunnyboy2018 said:

Anti American and Anti Israeli propaganda. Countless countries such as Ethiopia,  Eritrea,  Tunisia etcetc are grotesquely mismanaged. Nothing to do with American influence. As for the numerous muslim illegal immigrants...there is plenty of room and wealth in Saudi and Kuwait. Israel has given more Arabs voting rights than any Arab country

Sure there are countries that contribute through no fault of the Americans, But there are a great more that are, so to that degree Americans are to blame..

Most of Sb-saharan refugees come Through Libya, something that was not happening before the removal of Gaddafi .

Most of the refugees coming to Greece  are coming Through Turkey, vis Syria and Iraq, , which is what we are talking about in this Thread.  How many refugees were coming before we destabilised these countries?