As winter closes in, thousands of refugees in Greece still face homelessness and destitution. While winter always poses a challenge, this year is likely to become one of the most challenging yet due to the ongoing pandemic, a deliberate decrease in the length of support for refugees, and the lack of a comprehensive integration strategy and strategy against homelessness from authorities. 

Terre des hommes is concerned about the situation of migrant children and young people from non-European countries, asylum seekers or beneficiaries of a form of international protection in Romania. Tdh developed the advocacy paper "Access to education for migrant children and youth in Romania" with recommendations to the agencies responsible for the integration of migrants in the Romanian society.

Members of Greece's parliament should urgently establish an inquiry into all allegations of unlawful returns of migrants to Turkey by law enforcement officers and others, 29 human rights and humanitarian aid organizations said in an open letter released today. These returns are carried out mainly through pushbacks and collective expulsions and are often accompanied by violence.
 

At these exceptional times marked by a global pandemic, the Initiative for Child Rights in the Global
Compacts (the Initiative) has put together a collection of practices from its members, to support
governments to better protect and support refugee children by putting the Global Compact on
Refugees (GCR) into practice with children at its heart.

Following yesterday’s fire in Moria, on Lesvos, which destroyed the Reception and Identification Centre, 30 civil society organizations call on the Greek Government to immediately provide assistance to people who lost their shelter. Those affected, among them many children and at-risk groups, must be carefully transferred to safety on the mainland. 

Terre des hommes (Tdh) and its partners developed three online courses focusing on protecting migrant and refugee children and their families.

We, the undersigned organizations, jointly call on European governments to proceed immediately with the emergency relocation of unaccompanied children from the Reception and Identification Centres (RICs) on the Greek islands, with no discrimination, giving precedence to existing family links and the best interests of the child.

Recalling the letter issued on 6 March 2020, signed by more than 250 organizations throughout Europe, the undersigned organizations reiterate the dangers stemming from persisting in current arrangements on the management of the reception of asylum seekers and the respect for their right to seek asylum in Greece. 

Greece’s government should immediately reduce congestion in the islands’ Reception and Identification Centers (RICs) for asylum seekers and migrants to avert a public health crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic, 21 human rights and humanitarian organizations said today.

In view of recent developments at the country's borders, in particular those concerning people who have been in Greece since March 1st, first residing in a military naval ship at the port of Mytilene and then being transferred to the mainland, we would like to express our deep concern regarding the fact that among the newcomers, there are families with children, and (according to all indications) unaccompanied minors for whom we have no information.