UNHCR urges efforts to ensure access to asylum and timely registration in Greece’s north-eastern Evros region.
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| Refugees and migrants arrive at a registration center in Greece after crossing the Evros River. © UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis |
PYTHIO VILLAGE, Greece – As dawn breaks over Greece’s
north-eastern Evros region, a group of three families with adults and
children tramp through Pythio and Thourio, small villages on a country
backroad.
“We’ve been travelling for three days directly from
Kobani,” [on the Syrian border with Turkey],” says one of the group, that wants
to reach the city of Thessaloniki, more than 300 kilometres to the west. “We
are hungry and thirsty. We need help for our children,” the middle-aged woman
says.
Later in the day, two young men stride past the
ancient Byzantine castle that looms over Pythio. They are from Afghanistan, and
it has taken them eight months to reach this point. “We are going to Athens,”
explains 22-year-old Safiullah, who comes from Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.
His equally determined compatriot, Lalgul, 25, is from Baghlan and they met on
the road.
Both groups have made the dangerous crossing from
Turkey across the nearby Evros River, which forms all but 12.5 kilometres of
the 190-km border. The day before, a body was found, the 12th on the Greek side
this year and compared to nine in all of 2017. “It’s a very big figure for us
and we expect more,” forensics scientist Pavlidis Pavlos tells UNHCR, the UN
Refugee Agency, adding that others, including children, have been reported
missing recently.
“We
are hungry and thirsty.”
These are relatively sporadic encounters in the fields
and forests flanking the Evros River compared to March and April, when the
daily arrivals in this and other areas rose significantly, putting a severe
strain on the inadequate and stretched reception capacity in the Registration
and Identification Centre (RIC) at Fylakio in northern Evros, which all asylum
seekers should pass through. The numbers in May have dropped just as
dramatically, easing the pressure at least temporarily.
In April, over 3,600 refugees and migrants crossed to
Evros, compared to some 3,000 by sea to the Aegean islands near Turkey. It was
the first time in years that land arrivals surpassed sea arrivals. The
total number of Evros arrivals from January-May was some 7,200 compared to an
estimated 5,600 for the whole of 2017, according to data collated by UNHCR. The
new arrivals came primarily from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and included many
families with children.
Faced with the unexpected influx, the overwhelmed
police held hundreds in substandard police facilities until they could be moved
to the Fylakio RIC for the obligatory registration and identification. People
in need of protection must be able to undergo reception procedures, receive
information and ensured access to asylum at the Fylakio RIC, a closed facility
with a 240 capacity, with unaccompanied children accounting for almost
half. The RIC struggles to conduct the procedures in a timely manner
because it lacks core services such as interpretation, medical and pyscho-social
assistance.
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| Youssef and his family crossed from Turkey into Greece via the Evros River. © UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis |
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| The border river, pictured here near the city of Orestiada. © UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis |
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| UNHCR staff welcome refugees and migrants at the reception centre in Fylakio. © UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis |
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| A group of Syrians after crossing the Evros River between Greece and Turkey. © UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis |
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| Clothes left behind by refugees and migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece. © UNHCR/Socrates Baltagiannis |
Police subsequently released
more than 3,000 people, most of whom moved to open reception sites in northern
Greece, such as crowded Diavata, a former military base near Thessaloniki.
Releasing people from
detention is vital, families and children should not be detained. At the same
time it is important that people get information to access care and asylum
procedures. Many of these people remained without appropriate protection and
assistance.
Greek authorities in Evros
attribute the sudden fall in the number of arrivals in Evros, at some 1,450 in
May and 227 in the first 10 days of June from the April high, to
a variety of reasons, including new operational strategy and increased border
cooperation with Turkey.
“Now the situation is
manageable, but it is necessary to be prepared in case there is an increase in
arrivals,” said Panagiotis Koutouzos, police director in Alexandroupolis,
who covers the lower part of the Evros River.
“All I can do is save my wife and children.”
He and other officials,
including the RIC director Irene Logotheti, agree on the need for improvements
in various areas. “We need to expand, Logotheti says. “A capacity of 240 [in
the RIC] is too low.” She highlighted the medical gap as a huge problem. Most
people stay for only a handful of days.
UNHCR, which has a small but
important protection team in Fylakio and offers close support to the Evros
authoriities, has recently proposed the implementation of short and long-term
measures to improve the government’s response capacity in Evros. These
include the need to urgently enhance capacity of the RIC as well as improve
services and conditions.
The agency has also proposed
setting up mobile registration units, identifying open transit sites where
arrivals from Evros can be directed and undergo registration and identification
procedures. Families and children in detention should be released and moved to
safe shelter and referral to services. UNHCR has also call for increasing the
registration capacity of relevant Greek staff to ensure access to asylum and
timely registration.
Meanwhile, people continue to
arrive at Diavata and similar sites, as the government and partners strive to
find or prepare appropriate accommodation. Living in colourful tents dotted
around the edge of Diavata, many are refugees from the Syrian city of Afrin.
The night before, about 100
people arrived overnight from Evros but only 50 people in Diavata were due to
be taken to appropriate shelter elsewhere, which can take a month. New arrivals
outnumber those living in containers by 1,300 to 700, in a site with a capacity
for 900.
Mahmoud Mustafa Atar, a
37-year-old electrician from Afrin, and his wife and two sons shares a
container with other families from Afrin and longs to get his own shelter. He
worries about the future and mourns the past. “Afrin is my city, the place
where I was born and raised,” he says, adding: “All I can do is save my wife
and children.”
12/6/2018
