MIGRANTS-GREECE/UN U.N. urges EU to step in and help Greece with migrants crisis

Record ID: 147755

  • Title: MIGRANTS-GREECE/UN U.N. urges EU to step in and help Greece with migrants crisis
  • Date: 10th July 2015
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (JULY 10, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF UNITED NATIONS (U.N.) BUILDING VARIOUS OF NEWS BRIEFING ONGOING (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNHCR SPOKESPERSON, WILLIAM SPINDLER, SAYING: "We would expect the European Union to activate its emergency response because Greece is part of the European Union and this is happening in Europe, it's happening on the doorstep of Eur
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Switzerland
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA94SD446F79I6UABOU69OYRR74
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday (July 10) that Greece urgently needed help to cope with 1,000 migrants arriving each day and called on the European Union (EU) to step in before the humanitarian situation deteriorates further.
    More than 77,000 people have arrived by sea to Greece so far this year, more than 60 percent of them Syrians, with others fleeing Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and Somalia the UNHCR said.
    "We would expect the European Union to activate its emergency response because Greece is part of the European Union and this is happening in Europe, it's happening on the doorstep of Europe," William Spindler of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR told a news briefing.
    "We have seen huge expression of solidarity from the Greek people, the Greek public, organizing distribution of food, water, milk for the babies and so on which is particularly moving, given the economic situation in Greece. But Greece urgently needs help and we expect Europe to step forward," he added.
    Local authorities on islands including Lesvos, where the situation is "particularly dire", are unable to handle the massive flow, he said, while noting that most refugees move on through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary after registering with Greek police.
    "The situation in Lesvos you mentioned is particularly dire, about half of the arrivals in the Greek islands are arriving there in Lesvos. We registered recently 1,600 people arriving in one day alone," Spindler said.
    An estimated 150,000 migrants have reached Europe by sea so far in 2015, most of them in Greece and Italy, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. More than 1,900 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean, twice the toll during the period last year, spokesman Joel Millman said.
    "This particular week has been terribly deadly. Since Monday we've heard about bodies being recovered on four different days, including 12 last night," Millman said.
    Twelve migrants died on Thursday when their overcrowded rubber dinghy sank off the coast of Libya, the Italian Coast Guard said, while some 500 were rescued in the latest episodes in the Mediterranean migrant crisis.
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