'Residents' of the Idomeni border camp await relocation after Greek police entered the camp at dawn on 24 May 2016 to begin its evacuation. Giannis Papanikos/Press Association Images. All Rights Reserved.
Last week an asylum appeals committee in Lesbos upheld the appeal of an asylum seeker who had been one of the first Syrians listed for deportation under the terms of the EU-Turkey deal. The decision affirmed what many human rights commentators have been saying, that “temporary protection which could be offered by Turkey to the applicant, as a Syrian citizen, does not offer him rights equivalent to those required by the Geneva convention”. The committee’s decision put a halt to further questionable practices that saw Syrian refugees, including pregnant women, returned from Greece to a remote detention camp in southern Turkey where they were denied access to lawyers.
The Lesbos committee decision, although positive, now raises many questions about the fate of asylum-seekers in Greece who cannot be lawfully removed and for whom detention appears to be the only alternative. Most at risk are the estimated 8,000 refugees and migrants who have been housed in the reception centre in Idomeni, which the Greek authorities are now trying to close.
