Clothes are hung on the fence of a migrant facility at Malakasa village, north of Athens, Sunday, April 5, 2020. Greece has put the facility outside Athens on lockdown for 14 days after a 53-year-old Afghan developed coronavirus symptoms Saturday afternoon. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)
Republished April 07, 2020 - 11:39 AM
Original Publication Date April 07, 2020 - 10:46 AM
BERLIN - Germany plans to take in up to 50 unaccompanied minors staying at overcrowded refugee camps in Greece, while Luxembourg has agreed to accept 12, government officials said Tuesday.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer will propose to the Cabinet on Wednesday a plan to bring the children to Germany and recommend that “the transfer should begin in the next week, if possible,” a statement from his ministry said.
A dozen children are expected to be transferred from the Greek camps to Luxembourg in the coming days, the Greek government said, expressing thanks to the small European country.
The relocation is “being achieved despite the difficult circumstances of the (coronavirus) pandemic and has created a positive example to other European partners, " Giorgos Koumoutsakos, Greece's alternate minister of migration and asylum minister, said.
More than 42,000 people currently live in the overcrowded camps on the Greek islands, including about 5,500 unaccompanied minors. Around 10% of them are under 14-years-old, according to police agency Europol.
The European Union said on March 13 that a group of member countries had agreed to take at least 1,600 children who reached Greece travelling without their parents. But restrictions EU member nations adopted to slow the spread of the coronavirus complicated efforts to start putting the deal into effect.
Children moved to Germany will spend their first two weeks in quarantine and then sent to various German states, the German Interior Ministry said.
In addition to Germany and Luxembourg, France, Portugal, Ireland, Finland, Croatia, Lithuania, Belgium and Bulgaria also said they were prepared to take in children from the Greek camps, the ministry said.
“Because of internal challenges" in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, "there are understandably delays in some countries at present,” the ministry’s statement said. “But Germany has the clear expectation that these countries will keep to their commitment.”
News from © The Associated Press, 2020