Greek asylum policy causing a refugee hunger crisis: Aid groups

According to humanitarian organisations, restrictive government choices have pushed thousands of refugees out of protective support services, resulting in a starvation crisis.

On the Greek mainland, about 18,000 refugees dwell in camps. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, more than half of the population – 60 percent – has no access to food or monetary assistance. Almost half of the population is made up of children.

That’s because, as of September, the government only provided services to people who were applying for asylum. The majority of campers do not fit that definition.

Some people have been awarded asylum, but they are only eligible for benefits for 30 days after the decision is made.

Benefits used to be extended for six months to help people find work and find a place to live. In March of last year, the government shortened that term.

This includes Afghans like Asadullah Sadighi and his 16-year-old daughter, who live in Ritsona camp, a former air force radar base 90 kilometres north of Athens.

“When they give us asylum, they don’t provide us food or cash anymore, and they leave us to fend for ourselves,” Sadighi told media. They utterly deprive us of our safety.”

He has begged family in his own country to send him money.

Those who have been refused and have exhausted all appeals have been instructed to leave the country – though authorities do not physically remove them from the camp grounds because they cannot be sent back to Turkey.

In theory, a 2016 agreement between the European Union and Turkey requires both sides to readmit rejected asylum seekers, but Turkey ceased doing so in March of last year.

A third group of people is ineligible to petition for asylum because they are deemed inadmissible.

Turkey was designated as a safe third nation for Afghans, Syrians, Somalis, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis by a cabinet decision in June.

According to humanitarian organisations, these nations are no longer being processed for asylum and are instead being told to apply in Turkey, which is just across the border.

“Because Turkey does not accept Greek returnees, these people are in a legal limbo,” explains Melina Spathari, director of Terre des Hommes Greece. “One of the repercussions of this limbo is that they are ineligible for food and other essential rights.”

Her organisation was one of 33 that wrote to the government in late October, warning of an impending humanitarian crisis.

They claim that Greece’s failure to consider asylum applications from these five nationalities on their merits is in violation of EU Directive 2013/23, which states that “where a third country refuses to accept a person, the State shall evaluate the asylum application according to its substance.”