In Greece, some thirty NGOs denounce the lack of access to food for many residents of refugee camps on the mainland of the country. In question, a new law in force since October which limits state assistance to only people whose asylum application is in progress. People from whom it has either been accepted or rejected are now excluded from food support programs despite the frequent absence of an alternative.
With our correspondent in Athens, Joel Bronner
Logic is mathematics. Some NGOs compared the official figures of the food distributed by the authorities in the camps of mainland Greece and the number of residents of these camps, recorded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The result of the calculation leaves nearly 40% of them – around 6,000 people including many children – deprived of food.
” At the beginning of last October, camp residents who had been granted asylum were told to move elsewhere and fend for themselves, explains Melina Spathari represents the NGO Terre des hommes in Greece. But obviously this is not possible as there are no integration measures in place to help these people find livelihoods and start living independently. »
Stuck in Greece
The Greek bureaucracy is indeed a major obstacle for recognized refugees to quickly find a job. Residence permit, tax number, bank account… All these procedures take time.
For their part, those rejected from asylum whom Athens would like to send back to Turkey, from where they arrived by sea, find themselves stuck in Greece, in the absence of an agreement with Ankara. And during this time, as the NGOs denounce, many people are hungry.
►Also listen: In Greece, progressive criminalization of migrants and crime of solidarity