Asylum Seekers to Be Sent Back to Greece From March 2017
E.U. states will be able to return asylum seekers to Greece from early next year. The European Commission said it would reimpose the rule that migrants must register for asylum in their first country of entry, says Reuters.
The rule collapsed under the weight of more than 1 million arrivals during 2015. Faced with overwhelming numbers, Greece waved refugees and migrants through, with hundreds of thousands making for Germany and Sweden to seek asylum.
“This will provide further disincentives against irregular entry and secondary movements, and is an important step for the return to a normally functioning … system,” said the Commission’s vice president, Frans Timmermans.
It recommended that from mid-March onward E.U. states be allowed to send back to Greece those asylum-seekers who arrive in Europe via the country. The recommendation will not apply to those who have already made the journey.
The Commission’s announcement comes as more than 62,000 refugees and migrants remain warehoused in Greece. A plan to relocate 160,000 refugees from both Greece and Italy to other member states has so far moved just 8,200 people. A system of mandatory quotas to share the burden collapsed under objections from Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the so-called Visegrad Four.
MSF Closes Jordan Clinic No Longer Accessible to Syrian Wounded
The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders; MSF) has closed a clinic in Jordan after the country sealed its border with Syria.
The clinic for war-wounded in Zaatari refugee camp was a vital source of care but Syrians can no longer reach it.
The closure in June of the border area known as “the berm” came in response to a deadly bombing claimed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). All medical evacuations from Syria have since stopped and tens of thousands of Syrians are massed on the Jordan border at Ruqban. Some aid has been allowed to reach them under a new security deal but there is otherwise no movement across the border.
“Knowing that there are probably patients dying just a few kilometers away on the other side of the border because of lack of access to essential medical care is shameful,” said Marjan Besuijen, MSF project coordinator in Zaatari.
“The wards inside Zaatari clinic are silent, they are no longer filled with conversations or laughter. But this is not because the violence in Syria has diminished, nor because there are no wounded in need of medical treatment. It is solely due to a physical barrier depriving those desperately in need of life-saving medical care.”
Refugee Lawmaker Abused by Cabbie in Washington, D.C.
The United States’ first Somali-American lawmaker said she was abused and threatened by a cab driver in Washington, D.C., reports the Star Tribune.
Ilhan Omar, a state representative for Minnesota, had the run-in on her way to a hotel after work.
“I got in a cab and became subjected to the most hateful, derogatory, Islamophobic, sexist taunts and threats I have ever experienced,” the former refugee wrote on her Facebook page.
“The cab driver called me ISIS and threatened to remove my hijab.”
Omar left the vehicle and later said she planned to report the incident once she returned to Minneapolis, as the driver knew where she was staying in Washington, D.C.
“I am still shaken by this incident and can’t wrap my head around how bold beings are becoming in displaying their hate towards Muslims,” Omar wrote.
The FBI revealed in November that hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. increased by 67 percent during 2015.
Recommended Reads:
- Associated Press: An Officer and a Refugee: New Policeman Straddles Worlds
- Der Spiegel: The Death Strip at the Turkish-Syrian Border
- The Guardian: After Calais: What Has Happened to the Refugee Children? – Video
- The New York Times: 360-Degree Report on the Last Rescue of 2016