‘End Immigration Detention For Children‘ published a very insightful article on the fate or refugee children in the midst of the EU-Turkey Deal. In particular, the article deals with the situation of Pakistanis minors who reached the island of Lesvos.
What is certain is that these boys waited, alongside other children and adults, inside the detention center for many weeks or even months amidst appalling conditions, limited access to medical attention and information, violent outbursts, and food shortages. Many of them continue to wait in shelters or in other unstable and impermanent housing arrangements throughout the country. All of these boys remained far from home, but even further away from the better lives that they set out looking for.
IBW21.org published an insightful reportage about AfroTurks in Turkey:
“While Turkey is home to many ethnic and religious minorities, members of the Afro-Turk community attract immediate attention in big cities, particularly in the wake of the recent refugee crisis, when they have often been mistaken for Eritrean or Somalian refugees trying to get to Europe.
Although some estimates put the number of Afro Turks as high as 100,000, the community remains relatively unknown, especially outside of the Aegean area where many slave families were sent to work on the cotton fields near the port of old Smyrna (modern day Izmir) in the 18th Century, and where many were relocated in the last few decades of the Ottoman Empire.”
The No Border Kitchen Lesvos supports around 350 refugees in Lesvos to cook and subsist autonomously. Now they are asking for financial support to keep up their vital work!
Via Bianet – A border wall similar to the “security wall” build on the Syrian border is being built on the Iranian border. The wall will be built by Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) between Ağrı and Iğdır provinces within a protocol between the Ministry of National Security and TOKİ.
Daily Sabahreports that the Turkish Land Forces intercepted 975 people who tried to cross into Turkey on Monday: “The Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement that 926 people from Syria, 28 from Bulgaria, 18 from Greece and three people from Iraq, as well as 50 people trying to enter Syria from Turkish land, were captured.” Continue reading 975 people intercepted trying to illegally enter Turkey→
The EU claims refugee flows from Turkey to Greece have slowed, so it is cutting funding to aid agencies and paying the Greek government to take over services there instead.
MSF published a report on the psychological and physiological health conditions of asylum seekers in Lesvos:
“Our medical teams treating asylum seeking men, women and children in Lesbos wish to ring the alarm bell as to the further deterioration of the care and protection afforded to vulnerable people. In Lesbos, as in much of Greece, vulnerable people’s health and well-being are being put at risk by a grossly deficient vulnerability screening system and policies aimed at returning as many people as possible to Turkey.”
The organization Sea-Watch, who were one of the first humanitarian NGO’s to start rescue operations in front of the Libyan coast and have been active in the Aegean sea with rescue assets too, now started a new monitoring project in the Aegean. See more in the video
