Disappointment awaits migrants fleeing to Greece

[Sally]

I can't imagine all these migrants staying in Greece since many Greeks are having a hard time feeding themselves..


Disappointment awaits migrants fleeing to Greece


Monday, July 13, 2015
From Print Edition


ATHENS: They arrive full of hope and ambition to idyllic Greek islands, having fled war and other perils. However, once in Athens the migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq discover a country in crisis with little to offer them.

At 6:00 am, with the sun rising over the Athens port of Piraeus, hundreds of grateful migrants disembark from ferries in the midst of summer holidaymakers.

Despite their fatigue, the relief is palpable among the migrants made up of relatively young men, but also families whose only luggage is a sleeping bag and a back-pack.

Some take selfies on their mobile phones to record their arrival.

Among them is Hisham Mohy Al Deen, 37, a Palestinian from Syria and former UN employee.

Beside him are his wife Wallaa, looking exhausted, and their three daughters — the youngest just a few months old.

Deen says he is happy to be in Greece and wants “to find a new life far from the war”.


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Disappointment awaits migrants fleeing to Greece - thenews.com.pk?

 

[waltky]

Yea, where are the rich Arab states in all this??...

What're they doing: Rich Gulf states questioned over refugee crisis
Sep 07, 2015 | By the end of August, more than four million Syrians had fled their country but very few if any refugees have been officially accepted by the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

As hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees risk their lives to reach Europe, questions are being asked about why wealthy Gulf states have accepted so few of them. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have donated billions to help refugees, but are facing increasing scrutiny for their apparent unwillingness to accept migrants.

Why, ask many, as one of the greatest migration crises of modern times unfolds, are fellow Arab countries, with similar cultural and religious values and a relative proximity compared to Europe, doing little to help resettle people? And, crucially, that criticism is being voiced not just in the West, but within the region itself.

Some 2,000 people, mostly Syrian refugees, spent a rainy night stranded in no-man's land between Greece and Macedonia as hundreds more began arriving on Saturday on their way to western Europe.

In recent days, social media users in the Gulf have employed various hashtags including "#Welcoming_Syria's_refugees_is_a_Gulf_duty" to voice their disgust with the perceived inaction of GCC states. Why the heck aren't they doing anything? They're muslim brothers, right? #Welcoming_Syria's_refugees_is_a_Gulf_duty pic.twitter.com/RLsA5fs4ee
— Raluca Victoria (@RaluVicL) September 3, 2015

"The Gulf countries have to be ashamed when they see Europe's doors open to Syrian refugees, while they close before us," Abu Mohammed, a 30-year-old Syrian refugee now living in Jordan, told AFP. An influx of Syrian refugees has swamped Europe this summer, with Germany alone expecting 800,000 new asylum applications this year and efforts under way to organise the relocations of tens of thousands more. But in the oil-rich Gulf, GCC states have been absent from talk of helping with the refugee crisis.
Deeply involved in Syria

See also:

Migrant crisis: Anger in Lesbos as Syrian refugees urge authorities to let them go to Athens - live
Monday 07 September 2015 | Hungary is open to discussing quotas, the country's prime minister says, as a refugee shelter in Germany is set ablaze. Follow the latest developments here

Refugees cross into Hungary underneath the border fence on the Hungarian - Serbian border near Roszke

President Francois Hollande has said France will begin reconnaisance flights over Syria tomorrow.

How is Germany helping?

The German government has announced a raft of new measures to deal with the refugee crisis, including releasing £4.4 billion in funds to house and feed migrants, writes Justin Huggler in Berlin. With the harsh German winter looming, chancellor Angela Merkel's government announced plans to provide 150,000 new places in "winterised shelters" for migrants. Thousands of migrants are currently in temporary tent camps, but Mrs Merkel wants them all to have proper shelter by the start of winter.

Refugees and migrants wait to board a bus following their arrival onboard the Eleftherios Venizelos passenger ship at the port of Piraeus in Greece

German authorities have also been facing a series of arson attacks that have put refugee shelters out of commission. Five people were injured in a new suspected arson incident at a shelter in southern Germany overnight. Mrs Merkel's government also announced the creation of 10,000 new jobs for civil servants to process asylum claims, and a further 3,000 for new police officers to help deal with the crisis.

The new funds mentioned above is intended to cope with the cost of migrants next year. It will be divided into €3 billion of direct spending by the federal government, and a further €3 billion for local authorities. It is in addition to €1 billion of spening Germany has already announced to cope with the crisis this year. In an effort to stop economic migrants from the Balkans clogging up the system and wasting valuable resources that could be spend on genuine refugees, Germany has added Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro to a list of "safe countries". The move makes it quicker to refuse asylum applications from citizens of those countries and deport them.

10.11

 

[waltky]

We beg your pardon, we never promised you a rose garden...

Migrants Finding Disappointment, Frustration in Sweden
September 22, 2015 — Like thousands of others, Adnan Bazaa made the monthlong trek from Syria, believing Sweden would be the end of the line.

He arrived in Stockholm this week hoping that a residence permit, a daily subsistence allowance, housing and a job, would be waiting for him. They were not. “I came from Syria because my house was razed to the ground by Bashar al-Assad’s forces. They tried to get me to join the army and kill my own people,” said Bazaa, a schoolteacher. “So I had two solutions: give up my salary, and go to Germany or Sweden or Norway.” Bazaa’s decision on where to go is based on what he has heard from friends and relatives about the Nordic countries’ tradition of strong social welfare systems that provide food, housing and employment to all and their longstanding practice of accepting immigrants.

Migration agency

That system was at work this week when Bazaa arrived in Stockholm, as officers with Sweden’s migration agency made the rounds in the city’s central train station, offering guidance to migrants on how to apply for asylum, find temporary lodging, and receive subsistence allowances while their asylum applications are being processed. But with more than 1,000 people applying for asylum in Sweden each day over the past weeks, the system is showing signs of stress.

Swedish volunteer medics help migrants at Stockholm Central Station railway

At a conference room inside Sweden’s migration headquarters Norrkoping, 169 kilometers (105 miles) southwest of Stockholm, Mikael Ribbenvik, the agency’s operations manager, looks at monitor screens showing the number of asylum applications coming in every morning. “It’s an escalating trend,” Ribbenvik said. Normally in the summer, which is the high season for asylum-seekers, the agency receives 2,000 applications per week. “For the last few days, it’s been around 1,000 asylum-seekers per day,” he told VOA.

Hundreds of migrants continue to arrive in Sweden, most of them at the port city of Malmo

The surge in arrivals has meant processing times are longer than ever, and officials estimate the process will soon take between 10 months and a year. “Many people are shocked when they come here and they say, ‘I can’t wait 10 months and maybe a year for my family to reunify. It’s too long time.’ That creates a lot of frustration,” Ribbenvik said. He said most migrants come hoping to resettle in large urban areas and have refused to get off buses when they discover the government intends to resettle them in remote, rural parts of the country.

Red Cross volunteers

See also:

Mother and daughter ‘living in Cyprus airport’ for 15 months
Sep 22, 2015 - Two women from Germany have been living in Cyprus's Larnaca International Airport for the past 15 months.

The women, believed to be a mother and daughter, have been sleeping on the concrete floor of the airport's car park. Although they have been offered assistance to return to Germany, they have refused help from the airport. It has been reported that the pair regularly enter the airport to use its facilities.

Adamos Aspris, Hermes airport spokesman, told Independent that airport staff last saw the women on Monday morning in the car park. Aspris said: "At the beginning our effort was to deal with this issue from a humanitarian perspective. However you cannot continue with this situation long term. After all we are an airport, not a hotel." The pair has also reportedly refused help from Larnaca police and the German embassy.

Aspris said the airport was working with responsible authorities to try "to find a solution to deal with this issue". The women reportedly arrived in Cyprus in August 2014, after being deported from Israel because their visas had expired. It is thought they want to return to Israel but are waiting for their status to be cleared.

Mother and daughter ‘living in Cyprus airport’ for 15 months - The Times of India