AYS Daily Digest 24/4/20
GREECE
After residents and local authorities in mainland Greece mobilised against plans to relocate 2,000 vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, the Greek Minister of Immigration and Asylum, Notis Mitarakis, announced that the plans would be deferred. Additionally, the decision by the Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis to extend the lockdown until May 4th also contributed to the decision to stop the relocation process.
Following pressure from the European Commission, the Greek government planned to relocate vulnerable asylum seekers from the overcrowded migrant reception centres where they are currently being housed and move them to the facilities on the mainland. Vulnerable migrants include unaccompanied minors, people with disabilities, pregnant women and new mothers, the elderly and victims of rape and torture. The decision to attempt to rehouse the asylum seekers was made due to the fears the current conditions within the Aegean camps would provide fertile conditions for the spread of the coronavirus. In the first quarter of 2020, the government had already transferred 10,000 people, but in April had only managed to relocate 627 people, leading NGO and rights groups to reaffirm their warning of the potential health crisis that could develop if camp overcrowding and poor sanitation is not immediately addressed. Recently, in southern Greece, 470 asylum seekers have been placed in quarantine in a hotel due to a third of them testing positive for COVID-19, again highlighting the human cost of the Greek government’s inability to effectively manage the situation.
To date, the IOM said it remains unclear where the migrants will be staying. Mr Mitarakis additionally announced that within 2020 the existing programme of hosting asylum seekers in hotel rooms across Greece will be abolished. One source suggested that the community, local mayor and municipal councils within Messolonghi in Western Greece opposed the plans to rehouse migrants under the demand that the hotels in which they may have been housed stay free for the upcoming tourist season.
An indictment has been submitted in accordance with article 42 of the code of criminal procedure following the shooting of four asylum seekers in Lesvos, previously reported on by Are You Syrious. The Racist Crimes Observatory in a letter to the General Regional Police Directorate of North Aegean affirms that due to the nationality of the victim and the frequency of similar attacks against migrants and refugees, it is unacceptable that this crime is not being investigated in line with Article 82A of the Penal Code, and this is being deemed to have racist characteristics.
Racist Crimes Watch shared the press release from the police:
The perpetrator of yesterday’s incident of injury of foreigners in Lesvos was immediately arrested. A shotgun and ammunition were confiscated.
The Mytilene Security Sub-Directorate, after a systematic and thorough investigation, managed in a short period of time to identify the person who yesterday (22–04–2020) in the afternoon at a rural location in Lesvos, shot with a shotgun and injured two foreigners.
He is a citizen, who was arrested today (23–04–2020) in the afternoon in Mytilene, while at the same time the hunting weapon that used two cartridges was confiscated. A criminal case was filed against the detainee for attempted murder with intent and violation of the law on weapons.
The arrested person will be taken to the competent Prosecutor’s Office, while the investigations and the preliminary investigation will be carried out by the Mytilene Security Sub-Directorate.
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