Within the past three weeks the average number of people landing on Greek shores has doubled to about 120 per day, said Greek Migration Policy Minister Dimitris Vitsas.
Vitsas accompanied Avramopoulos during his tour at Ritsona and the nearby town of Livadeia where refugee families are hosted in houses under an accommodation program funded by the EU.
Some 1.5 billion euros (1.85 billion U.S. dollars) have been made available to Greece since the start of the crisis, the EU Commissioner noted.
"The EU-Turkey statement still holds and delivers, but the migratory situation remains unfortunately volatile. We remain vigilant. It is therefore necessary to speed up the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement in order to accelerate returns to Turkey," Avramopoulos underlined.
Under the EU-Turkey agreement all new arrivals to Greece after March 2016 should be returned to Turkey should they not qualify for asylum.
However, the asylum procedure in Greece takes long and in many cases people live in camps awaiting the verdict on their asylum bids for two years, Avramopoulos and Vitsas acknowledged.
A total of 1,590 refugees and migrants have been sent back to Turkey under the EU-Turkey statement since 2016, according to the latest official data provided by the Greek Police on Thursday.
"The Greek government considers as its humanitarian obligation, a European and national obligation, to continue providing aid to asylum seekers. Of course the best solution would be to see these people returning to their homelands or continue on the road they wish to take, but we are far away from this stage at the moment," Vitsas said.
【国际英语资讯:EU to continue supporting Greece face refugee challenge: EU Commissioner】相关文章:
★ 三只小猪和大灰狼
最新
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15
2020-09-15