This year’s anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal falls at a time of chaos, confusion and fear. The Coronavirus epidemic has disrupted all aspects of European life; for displaced people in Europe, the virus poses an additional threat. In both Greece and Turkey, and...
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and IOM, the International Organization for Migration, announce a temporary suspension of resettlement travel for refugees due to the COVID-19 global health crisis. Reduced entry into territories and restrictions around air travel led to...
On 16 March 2020, the Spanish police released eight people from the Centros de Internamiento de Extranjeros (CIE) in Valencia, recognizing that operating returns is not possible due to the movement restrictions put in place across the globe due to the COVID-19...
In a statement the platform for civil society conducting search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean, Mediterranea, regrets that it has to suspend rescue operations due to practical and health challenges resulting from the Corona virus. Departures have...
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović published a letter addressed to Vice-President Schinas and Commissioner Johansson in which she lists what she considers the most pressing human rights issues that the Pact on Asylum and Migration...
A young child died in a fire in the overcrowded Moria camp on Lesbos. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warns that living conditions in the island hotspots “provide the perfect storm for a COVID-19 outbreak”. 450 people who have been detained for weeks in the habour of...
The Governments of Belgium and the Netherlands have introduced measures effectively suspending the right to asylum for newly arriving asylum seekers due to the corona virus. While no alternative arrangements for the reception of asylum seekers have been made in...
The updated country report on the United Kingdom documents developments in the area of asylum procedures, reception conditions, detention of asylum seekers and content of international protection in 2019. As the United Kingdom (UK) left the European Union (EU) on 31...
At the EU-Turkey border the situation remains alarming, and ECRE continued to speak out against the actions of the Greek government and the apparent support from the EU’s political leadership, and to promote the alternative response set out in our statement and urged...
Greek authorities are continuing apparently illegal actions in an attempt to stop people entering from Turkey. EU confirms that violations will be discussed and short of declaring Greek suspension of procedures illegal, states that they cannot be suspended. A group of...
