Greece Relocates More Than 1,000 Unaccompanied Minors

Eleven unaccompanied minors left Greece for France on Tuesday, bringing the total number relocated to EU countries since April 2020 to 1,006, according to the Migration Greek ministry

Athens, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Sep, 2021 ) :Eleven unaccompanied minors left Greece for France on Tuesday, bringing the total number relocated to EU countries since April 2020 to 1,006, according to the Migration Greek ministry.

The teenagers, 10 Afghans and one Iraqi, boarded a plane at Athens airport, ready to start "a new life", said Christine Nikolaidou, spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Greece's deputy minister for migration, Sophia Voultepsi, told AFP that it had been Athens' target to relocate around 1,000 minors "since the day we decided to start the programme." Some 995 children who had arrived in Greece without their parents were relocated to Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland between April and September 2020, according to the Greek Ministry of Migration.

France has received the most at 390, followed by Germany, according to the IOM.

According to the National Center for Social Solidarity (EKKA), some 2,120 unaccompanied children are still in Greece, mostly Afghan nationals.

Shortly after a fire completely destroyed the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos a year ago, the Greek Minister of Migration Notis Mitarachi vowed that no unaccompanied minors would be left in the unsanitary camps on the Aegean islands.