The contract to build a fence on Greece’s border with Turkey in Evros was signed on Thursday.
The 12.5-kilometer construction is being built to deter illegal immigration and trafficking but has prompted opposition from human rights groups.
Citizens’ Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis said that the signing of the deal proved the government was serious about moving ahead with the construction of the fence.
Source: http://www.economist.com/node/21542818
IT IS lunchtime and children pour out of Sunday-school classes in Thessaloniki. Waiting parents seem agitated as they talk to Valbona Hystuna, a teacher. The adults speak Albanian; the children talk to each other in Greek. Many of the youngsters have no knowledge of Albania. But the crisis in Greece is forcing their families to return home.
The latest census by Albania’s statistical office found only 2.
Source: http://www.athensnews.gr/issue/13471/50902
AFTER years spent trying to build “Fortress Europe” to keep undocumented migrants out of the European Union, Brussels now wants to make it easier for immigrants to get in and boost the 27-member bloc’s economies.
The European Commission is now proposing a new policy on migration and mobility which will benefit both sides of the immigration fence – the EU and the source countries.
Even as the repercussions of the debt crisis make the prospects of a new life in Greece less than rosy, the influx of undocumented immigrants into the country has increased significantly over the past year, according to figures released on Wednesday by the European Union’s border monitoring agency, Frontex. However, a top agency official has told Kathimerini that Greece woefully lacks the infrastructure to accommodate the would-be migrants.
A group of 61 undocumented migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan boarded a charter flight bound for Islamabad and Kabul on October 19.
This was the fifth expulsion flight to take off since March when Greece deported some 73 Dominicans. They were accompanied by 139 police officers and two doctors. European Union regulation requires two police officers to escort each immigrant on a flight.
So far this year, a total 335 undocumented migrants have been flown back to their country of origin.
Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com
Some 36,000 “illegal immigrants” have been caught crossing into Greece via its land border with Turkey, according to figures made public on Friday, October 7.
This compares to a total of just over 47,000 arrests during the whole of last year.
Greece is in the process of building a 12.5-kilometer fence in Evros, which is one of the main points of entry for “illegal migrants”.
CIE of Lampedusa set on fire by the Tunisians: “No deportations”
PALERMO
The elderly lock themselves in the house, the kids put a handkerchief to their mouth while the column of smoke blown by the mistral invades. Smell of plastic, scrap metal, burnt rubber. “A toxic cloud – dare someone – who knows how much crap we are breathing.
source: http://eagainst.com/articles/greece-racist-attacks-continue-plaguing-athens/
In the recent days repeated racist attacks take place in various neighbourhoods of Athens.
Last night (September 16), 2 Afghan immigrants were attacked outside their home. When they saw a group of thugs approaching, scared they tried to run away but did not manage to escape. The gangs attacked them leaving one stabbed! The victim suffered two wounds, one next to the heart and another one just below.
source: Financial Times
The European Union will on Friday propose a mechanism to suspend countries from the passport-free Schengen travel area, in a move diplomats say is partly aimed at putting pressure on Greece to keep illegal immigrants out of the bloc.
Greece, the country at the heart of Europe’s debt crisis, has for a decade been the weakest link in the EU’s common border system, struggling to control its eastern frontier with Turkey and its island-strewn Mediterranean coastline.
Source: Infomobile
Around the 8th of September unknown people set fire on a barack where asylum seekers were temporarily living in the transit-port of Patras.
As A., an Eritrean refugee reported:
I have been homeless in Athens. I have been homeless in Patras. I have been homeless in Igoumenitsa. I applied for asylum. Now I am again homeless in Patras. I live on the beach and in ruins. Police is hunting us every day.
A few days ago somebody lit fire on the ruin we were living in.
COMMENTS