(AP) Greece’s prime minister promised Friday to extend an existing wall across all of the country’s land border with Turkey as he campaigned for the country’s general election. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who called the May 21 election earlier this week, presided […]
(Kathimerini) Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday a fence being constructed at Greece’s northeastern border region of Evros will be completed “with or without European money.” “Tomorrow I will be in Evros and I will have the opportunity to sign the […]
(Kathimerini) One of the two Pakistani nationals arrested for planning to bomb a Jewish restaurant in central Athens, which doubled as a cultural and religious center, has already admitted his part in the plan, Kathimerini understands. The two will face an examining […]
(AFP) Greece is questioning eight additional suspects from Pakistan over an alleged plot to carry out anti-Semitic attacks in Athens, a police source said Thursday. “The investigation to determine if additional persons are involved is ongoing,” the police source told AFP. The […]
(AFP) Iran’s embassy in Greece on Wednesday denied any connection to an alleged plot for anti-Semitic attacks in Athens using Pakistanis of Iranian origin. “The embassy of the Republic of Iran strongly denies the rumours spread by Zionist sources and their baseless […]
(AP) Greek authorities said police were continuing searches in Athens and other parts of the country Wednesday following the arrest of two suspects accused of planning an attack at [a] Jewish center in a busy downtown area of the Greek capital. The […]
(Kathimerini) Authorities in the Evia town of Halkida are investigating the attempted gang rape of an 11-year-old resident of a migrant and refugee camp in Ritsona, northeast of the capital. According to state broadcaster ERT, the young Somali refugee told investigators that […]
(AP) Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Tuesday said his country’s intelligence agency Mossad helped Greece prevent a terrorist attack planned against at least one Jewish site in Athens. Greek authorities said earlier that two men described as being of Pakistani origin, […]
(AFP) Hundreds of refugees protested against Greece’s tough migration policies in Athens on Saturday, accusing the conservative government of “murdering” asylum seekers through illegal pushbacks. “Stop pushbacks, down with the government of murderers,” read one of the banners at the rally in […]
(AP) Three migrants and a suspected smuggler were seriously injured in North Macedonia when a car that police were pursuing overturned early Sunday, authorities said. Police said the car was carrying 11 migrants, five from Pakistan, three from India and three from […]
(AP) Less than a week after a deadly migrant shipwreck off Italy, five European Union countries on the Mediterranean Sea pushed back Saturday against their northern neighbors for not accepting asylum-seekers under a voluntary relocation initiative. The ministers responsible for migration policy […]
(Kathimerini) The 35-kilometer extension of the border fence between Greece and Turkey at Evros will be completed in the next 10 months, Citizen Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos told Skai on Sunday. The contractor for the extension has already been selected and the […]
(Anadolu) Türkiye on Sunday reaffirmed its support for the legitimate struggle of the Turkish minority of the Western Thrace region in Greece. Marking the Jan. 29 National Day of Resistance and Social Solidarity of Western Thrace, the Foreign Ministry said the people […]
(Kathimerini) One of the 38 refugees stranded on an islet along the Greek-Turkish border last summer has come forward to claim that the alleged death of a 5-year-old Syrian girl on the islet was meticulously stage-managed. The man, a Syrian national, has […]
(AP) Greece prevented around 260,000 migrants from entering illegally in 2022 and arrested 1,500 traffickers, an official said Saturday. Citizens’ Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos was speaking to ambassadors from other European Union countries plus Switzerland and the United Kingdom as he guided […]
(AFP) Greek police said Friday that they had broken up a network trafficking illegal migrants on the Turkish border, making seven arrests. Police said the suspects were due to appear later Friday before the public prosecutor in the city of Thessaloniki, where […]
(Anadolu) Greece’s Turkish minority sent a letter Tuesday to the UN’s special rapporteur on minority issues about problems it is facing. The letter was sent by the Friendship and Equality Party (DEB) and was supported by numerous minority religious, educational, and civil […]
(AP) Greece’s migration minister says the number of migrants arriving in Greece has dropped dramatically over the past two years, while the number of asylum-seekers living in the country has also fallen. Speaking Tuesday at an event marking the third anniversary of […]
(AP) An appeals court in Greece has ordered the release of a Somali migrant who had been sentenced to life in prison for people smuggling, in a case that has drawn international attention to draconian border protection laws in the European Union […]
(Kathimerini) Interior Minister Makis Voridis has intervened to ascertain the legality of the decision by a mayor in Rodopi, northeastern Greece, to fire workers accused of being supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled cleric and preacher that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan […]
(AP) Accompanied by a cloud of mosquitos, Police Capt. Konstantinos Tsolakidis and three other border guards set out on a boat patrol along the Evros River that forms a natural frontier between Greece and Turkey. The route takes them through a maze […]
(AP) Police in North Macedonia said Wednesday they had arrested nine people, including a police officer, on suspicion of smuggling dozens of migrants through the country. The nine, who are all Macedonian nationals and include two minors, were arrested during raids on […]
(AP) Four Turkish nationals have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling migrants after a boat with nearly 100 people on board was found in trouble off an island near Athens, Greek authorities said Friday. The coast guard said that the four had […]
(Anadolu) Greece does not recognize the Turkish community living in Western Thrace as an ethnic minority, thus violating a major international treaty, Türkiye’s top diplomat said on Thursday. “Greece persistently continues to violate the Lausanne Treaty and basic human rights of Turkish […]
(Kathimerini) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused Greece of undermining the rights of the Muslim minority in the country’s northeastern Thrace region. “The unfair and unlawful practices against the Muslim Turkish minority in Greece continue increasingly,” Erdogan told a gathering […]
(AP) Four Mediterranean European Union nations have issued a joint statement on a dispute over a deal for Europe to jointly help asylum-seekers. In their statement Saturday, Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus repeated their positions that they “cannot subscribe to the notion […]
(Kathimerini) Police say they have unraveled a migrant trafficking [ring] that operated from within the prisons of Hania on the island of Crete and Korydallos in Attica. The network, one of the largest trafficking circuits in the country, transferred migrants from the […]
(AP) Turkey and Greece on Monday exchanged more mutual recrimination over 92 migrants who were found stripped naked by Greek authorities at the two countries’ joint border, a day after the United Nations called for an investigation into the incident. Greek migration […]
(AP) Turkish officials on Sunday shot back at Greek allegations that Turkey forced 92 naked migrants into Greece, calling it “fake news” and accusing Greece of the mistreatment. Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi was “sharing false information” after the official tweeted a […]
(AP) Greek authorities on Saturday accused Turkey of forcing 92 migrants to cross into Greece and stripping them naked before doing so. Greek police said that police officers found the migrants stark naked on Friday, “some with bodily injuries” who had entered […]
(AP) Police in North Macedonia said Thursday that 26 migrants, who had been crammed into two cars driven by suspected smugglers, have been detained near the southern border with Greece. A police statement said the cars were near the town of Valandovo […]
(AP) Police in North Macedonia have detained 44 Syrian migrants, including 14 minors, found carefully hidden in a truck near the southern border with Greece, authorities said Tuesday. The truck driver was arrested on suspicion of belonging to a migrant-smuggling ring. A […]
(AP) Several Mediterranean nations said Saturday the European Union’s border agency Frontex needs to work inside third countries to stop smugglers from endangering the lives of migrants by sending them off to Europe on risky boat trips. Top officials from Spain, Greece, […]
(Kathimerini) Greece on Wednesday published a video that appears to show officers of the Turkish Coast Guard hitting migrants and pushing their rubber boat away from the former’s vessel. Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis, who posted the video on his Twitter account, said […]
(AFP) Greece’s coast guard on Sunday said a group of migrants in distress in the Ionian Sea had refused to be rescued, amid widespread reports of illegal pushbacks. The coast guard said the group of at least 56 asylum seekers were on […]
(AP) Greece on Monday urged the European Union to lift movement restrictions for refugees recognized by individual nations, accusing the bloc of applying a double standard when dealing with Ukrainians fleeing the war compared with the victims of other conflicts. Notis Mitarachi, […]
(Kathimerini) Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis sent a letter of response to Channel 4 and Der Spiegel regarding the reports they published about the 38 migrants stranded on an islet in the Evros River on Greece’s border with Turkey. Greece, he noted, has […]
(Kathimerini) Guards at Greece’s northeastern land border with Turkey prevented some 1,500 migrants from entering the country on Wednesday, the country’s minister for citizens’ protection said, describing the push for entry as an “organized plan.” “There obviously exists some kind of organized […]
(Kathimerini) Athens accused Ankara of trying to intervene in its domestic affairs after Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called on Greece to investigate threats received by a Muslim member of Greek Parliament and expressing support for the country’s “Turkish minority.” Huseyin Zeybek, a lawmaker […]
(Anadolu) Türkiye on Friday called on authorities in Greece to investigate a death threat against a Greek lawmaker who is also a member of the country’s Muslim Turkish minority. “We expect the Greek authorities to investigate this serious incident and punish the […]
(AP) A group of 142 migrants was detained near North Macedonia’s southern border with Greece early Thursday, authorities said. A police statement said the detainees were mostly from Syria and Pakistan, and had entered from Greece. They were taken to a shelter […]
(Anadolu) The newly elected Muslim cleric (mufti) of the Turkish minority in the Xanthi region of Western Thrace in Greece said Monday that discriminatory practices are being carried out against the Turkish minority in the region. Mustafa Trampa, who was elected as […]
(Kathimerini) Greece’s Foreign Ministry has released a statement countering Turkish claims that it imposes appointed religious leaders, or muftis, on the Muslim minority in the northeastern province of Thrace instead of letting them elect their own. “The Turkish side is attempting, once […]
(AFP) A group of Syrian refugees in Turkey is planning to form a caravan to reach the European Union, organisers said Saturday. Plans are being drawn up online via a Telegram channel, set up six days ago and followed by almost 70,000 […]
(Anadolu) In defiance of state intervention, Greece’s 150,000-strong Muslim Turkish minority is set to elect their new religious leader. The elections — in which two candidates, Mustafa Trampa and Mustafa Kamo, are running — will be held following Friday prayer in Xanthi […]
(Anadolu) Türkiye on Monday again urged Greece to respect the rights of the Turkish minority in its Western Thrace region and to stop denying recognition to elected Muslim clerics (muftis). Talking to Twitter, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that Türkiye expects Greece […]
(AFP) Greece has blocked over 150,000 undocumented migrants on its land and maritime border so far this year, the migration minister said Sunday. “The entry of 154,102 irregular migrants was averted since the start of the year. Around 50,000 attempted to invade […]
(AP) Greek authorities have prevented some 25,000 people from entering the country illegally in less than a month, a government official said Wednesday, accusing neighbor and regional rival Turkey of channeling asylum-seekers toward Greece. That figure is more than three times the […]
(AP) Greece will gradually extend a fence along its land border with Turkey and increase surveillance measures following an increase in illegal immigration from its eastern neighbor, the Greek government said Tuesday. The decision was taken during a meeting, chaired by Prime […]
(AP) Police in North Macedonia have detained 26 migrants thought to have entered illegally from neighboring Greece, and arrested a suspected smuggler who had been driving them in a van toward the northern border with Serbia. A police statement said the migrants […]
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