(Athens News)

THE UNITED Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in Athens has blasted the Greek government for failing to protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.

 

 

In a statement released ahead of World Refugee Day, on June 20, the UN body expressed concern that asylum seekers in Greece may find themselves locked up or expelled under the country’s latest crackdown on illegal immigration.

 

“The refugees come to our country today without identity papers, but this does not deny them the right to protection and certainly does not make them ‘illegal’,” said Yiorgos Tsarbopoulos, director of the UNHCR office in Greece. “They should not be confronted with police measures nor should they face deportation, arrest, administrative detention. They should not be forbidden to enter the country.”

 

Tsarbopoulos added that the state has an international obligation to protect migrants and this is why there is a need for reception facilities at the entry points, social welfare measures “and certainly an asylum system that will ensure the fair examination of their claim and increase the rate of refugee recognition or humanitarian status granted to them”.

 

In a June 17 report assessing the situation in Greece, the UNHCR said, “a large number of those who have illegally entered the country are in need of international protection”.

 

According to official data, 48,170 undocumented migrants arrested last year come from war-torn Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.

 

The UNHCR also called on the government to create special reception centres for asylum seekers and to accelerate the rate at which the state examines their applications for asylum.

 

Nearly every single asylum application (99.95 percent) submitted last year was rejected, while more than 30,000 applications are currently pending an appeal.