42 additional refugees arrived in the German city of Hanover from Greece on Wednesday, February 3. The group is part of a contingent of 1,553 vulnerable persons that Germany agreed to take from Greece after the fire in the Lesbos migrant camp Moria last September.
Greece's migration minister has told a German newspaper that the temporary reception facility on Lesbos is 'largely' equipped for winter. Despite some improvements, however, images from residents in the camp show miserable conditions.
Police say they stopped more than 5,000 migrants trying to fly from Greece to Germany last year. Germany plans to deploy more officers at airports to prevent 'people smuggling'.
A Syrian NGO based in the United States has filed a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to demand an investigation into alleged abuse and mistreatment of refugees by Greek authorities.
A number of NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, have urged the Greek government to be transparent about the details of the risks of lead poisoning at a migrant camp on Lesbos. They also urged for migrants to be evacuated as a precautionary measure.
The United Nations refugee agency has warned that the idea of asylum is under attack in Europe, with refugee pushbacks at external borders increasingly common.
A German court has ruled that two refugees granted asylum in Greece could not be sent back there because of a "serious risk of inhumane and degrading treatment." The court said the men would likely be unable to meet their most basic needs if they returned to Greece.
The British government says its priority is providing sanctuary to those in dangerous conflict zones post-Brexit. Effectively, this means that unaccompanied children without relatives in the UK no longer have a safe passage to Britain, say campaigners.
The managing board the EU’s border agency Frontex announced that following an internal investigation, it did not yet find enough proof of any rights violations at sea involving Frontex agents. However, it also didn't rule out that pushbacks might have occurred in some of the instances.
The Jesuit Refugee Service in Italy, Centro Astalli, reiterated its appeal for the immediate evacuation of migrants from Libya, as well as the Greek Islands and the Balkans, after 43 migrants died in a shipwreck off the coast of Libya on January 19.
A man is believed to have frozen to death trying to reach the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday. 27 others, mostly from Somalia, landed on the island and were rescued after spending a night in the open.
The Greek government has called on the European Union to help ensure the return of 1,450 failed asylum seekers currently in camps on the Greek Islands to Turkey "on the basis of the EU-Turkey deal".
