Brussels, 10/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 9 April, the association Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym, MSF) issued a statement in which it expresses concern at the increase in the number of refugees landing on the Greek islands, increasingly Syrians fleeing war and violence and now taking the eastern route of the Mediterranean to reach Europe. According to the latest official statistics, the number of refugees arriving in the Dodecanese islands in January was up 145% (from 186 to 457) on the same month of last year. In the country as a whole, the number of new arrivals has risen from 1,070 in the first week of February to 2,212 in the first week of March.
Although the number of refugees setting off from Libya to cross the central part of the Mediterranean to Italy increased in the first two months of the year (by 59% in January and 33% in February), this figure was down considerably (by 59%) in March, MSF adds. According to the figures of the Greek coastguard services, which were made official on 9 April, the number of migrants who arrived illegally on the shores of Greece tripled in the first quarter of 2015, to stand at 10,445, compared to 2,863 in the same period of the previous year. In the month of March, 6,493 passed through the various islands, mainly those in eastern Greece, close to the Turkish coast, the main embarkation point for smugglers.
MSF is “extremely worried that the situation in the Greek islands will only get worse if nothing will be done to prepare for the upcoming influx. The Greek authorities and EU must urgently agree a contingency plan to cope with the needs that may emerge from this potential new trend”, the NGO writes. “We are not yet in the peak season which usually falls from July to September. This certainly has rung the alarm bells for all of us that more people will need to be assisted in the summer months to come”, MSF continues. Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Greece “are left with poor accommodating conditions and limited access to healthcare. A functioning reception system is urgently needed to adequately receive these people”. (Solenn Paulic)