Greek minister warns refugee backlog will take two years to clear

13/3/2016

By Kerin Hope and Alex Barker

The 47,000-strong migrant backlog in Greece is growing rapidly and could ultimately take two years to clear, Athens’ newly appointed migration co-ordinator has said in a warning over the protracted plight of refugees stranded in the country.

With Macedonia’s border closed and Greek islands still receiving about 1,500 arrivals a day, a bottleneck of migrants has built up on the Greek mainland, overwhelming available shelter in some locations and outpacing Europe’s policy response.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Dimitris Vitsas, the deputy defence minister heading a ministerial team on the crisis, said most refugees will wait months and up to two years for relocation to other EU states, especially if contingency plans for 100,000 become a reality. “We also have to recognise that some migrants will stay in Greece permanently. It’s going to happen,” he said.

With Macedonia expected to keep its border shut, the EU’s faltering “relocation” scheme is the main route out of Greece for refugees. The European Commission is pushing for 6,000 transfers a month, a highly ambitious target that would at best still leave thousands in Greek camps until the autumn. In the first nine months of the relocation scheme, barely 600 people were moved. 

The slow pace of relocation underlines the grave challenge facing Athens and the EU as they attempt to accommodate a semi-permanent presence. Defence ministry contractors are scrambling to complete five more camps to fulfil Greece’s initial promise to accommodate 50,000 migrants. At a summit this week Alexis Tsipras, the Greek premier, wants the EU and Turkey to offer assurances on the fate of those refugees stranded in Greece.

One immediate problem facing Mr Vitsas is evacuating the sprawling tent camp at the country’s shuttered border with Macedonia, which he insists will happen by the end of this week. “The thousands of migrants at the border are awaiting the outcome of the March 17 summit [of EU leaders] on refugees, hoping they will then be able to cross,” he said. “We have to persuade them this is not going to happen . . . then the Idomeni camp will quickly empty, I think by the end of the week,” Mr Vitsas said in an interview.

More than 10,000 migrants have been enduring miserable conditions at a squalid unofficial camp at Idomeni, waiting in vain for the west Balkans migration route to Germany to reopen. “People don’t have to stay at Idomeni, we have more than enough places in three proper camps only 20km away where they can live decently,” he said.

The grim scenes being played out at Idomeni, from daily scuffles over dry clothes and food, to a couple forced to wash their newborn infant with water from a muddy puddle, underscore a growing sense of desperation among the camp’s more than 10,000 Syrian, Iraq and Afghan residents. Yet fewer than 2,000 migrants have taken the Greek authorities’ advice and moved into refurbished former military camps.

Nationwide the UNHCR says Greek facilities are at “full capacity” and struggling to cope. Mr Vitsas expects a big increase in the number of migrants arriving in the country as the weather improves.

“Our main problem is the growing bottleneck . . . there are continuing inflows to Greece and with the northern border closed, no possibility of an exit,” he said.

Germany and Turkey are backing a plan to end this flow by sending back all arrivals to Turkey after a certain date. If this deal is finalised at a summit this week, Mr Vitsas fears Turkey will refuse to take back economic migrants already trapped in Greece. “We think this is wrong, that it doesn’t help,” he said, saying migrants in Greece must have priority for return and relocation.

Chain-smoking throughout the interview, Mr Vitsas admits to feeling frustrated by the reluctance of many European countries to accept more than a small number of refugees from the Middle East conflicts.

“Some countries have governments that seem to be driven by xenophobia,” he said. “Among them are several that sent tens of thousands of economic migrants to Greece 25 years ago . . . But now the same countries don’t want to accept Syrian refugees coming from Greece. In my personal view, it’s a disgrace.”

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