5,139 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Greece during the past year, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. This indicates that the number of lone refugee children in the country is far bigger that what had been officially shared until now.
As highlighted by Tania Georgiopoulou in Kathimerini newspaper: “There are only 1,500 spaces in appropriate shelters nationwide, while refugee flows are constantly rising. This has led to large numbers of children ending up in overcrowded and unsuitable facilities, without access to essential child protection services. There have also been several reports of violent incidents among refugee children at the camps where they should be temporarily placed until they are registered”.
“We are in a crisis”, admitted Manos Logothetis, Secretary General for Migration Policy, while Hercules Moskoff, Secretary General for Vulnerable Citizens and Institutional Protection, stated that: “Greece has already reached out to the EU for assistance in relocating some of them, but no member state has responded yet”.
At the same time, the family reunification program, which would allow at least some children to travel to other European countries where their relatives live and thus be in an environment that would help with their integration, is progressing very slowly. Over the past year and a half, just 130 family reunifications have been completed successfully.