(Kathimerini) A 26-year-old Afghan man was arrested on Christmas Day for smuggling migrants into Greece, authorities reported on Thursday. The incident occurred early in the morning when a coast guard rescue boat spotted a disabled speedboat northeast of the island of Samos. […]
(Kathimerini) It was early in the afternoon of December 1, 2023, when a black inflatable speedboat from Turkey, carrying migrants, ran aground just a few meters outside the marina on the island of Kos in the eastern Aegean. The subsequent investigation into […]
(Kathimerini) Greek diplomatic sources on Wednesday reacted to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks about the Muslim minority in Thrace, emphasizing that minority members enjoy equality before the law and that their rights are fully respected. “Issues concerning the rule of law […]
(Kathimerini) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated on Wednesday that the only solution to the decades-long dispute over Cyprus is to establish two separate states on the island. “We can never forget the burned villages, the murdered children and the tragedies of […]
(Kathimerini) Irregular border crossings into the European Union reached an eight-year high in 2023, the EU’s border and coast guard agency has said. According to preliminary calculations by Frontex, approximately 380,000 people irregularly entered into the EU last year, the highest level […]
(Kathimerini) The Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court, on Wednesday approved the extradition of a 30-year-old Moroccan man who is believed to be a member of the ISIS terrorist group. The man was arrested in Thessaloniki in July 2021 after a […]
(Kathimerini) The Cypriot police arrested two Iranians last month, alleging their connection to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards of Iran (IRGC), targeting Jewish citizens in Cyprus. The individuals are currently in custody, with a deportation warrant. This marks the third incident in the […]
(Kathimerini) Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in his speech at the Turkish National Assembly on Monday spoke of “Turkish minorities” in western Thrace and in the Dodecanese being a priority to the Turkish government. “The condition of the Turkish minority of western […]
(Kathimerini) A 37-year-old Syrian national, arrested for migrant trafficking Saturday, has admitted he is working for a trafficking ring and is being paid €1,500 per month for his work. The Syrian is thought by authorities to be the organizer of the transport […]
(Kathimerini) The Greek government and authorities have been very successful in fighting “illegal migration” by creating “an extremely secure land border” with a sturdy fence that was built very quickly to act as a deterrent, British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said […]
(Kathimerini) An alarm was raised on Thursday night on the southeastern Aegean island of Leros when 123 Palestinian and Syrian refugees and migrants attempted to leave the migrant facility and board a ship destined for Piraeus, catching local officials by surprise. The […]
(Kathimerini) The number of refugees and migrants arriving in Greece by sea has more than doubled in 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, according to updated data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Indicatively, the data showed […]
(Kathimerini) Greek officials said Friday that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis never discussed issues that concern Greek citizens or the country’s sovereign rights with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The officials were responding to claims by Erdogan that the “problems of Western Thrace” […]
(Kathimerini) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed that the “problems of Western Thrace” was the “main issue” he raised with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at their meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius on Wednesday. “We want to […]
(Kathimerini) SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance President Alexis Tsipras accused New Democracy leader and prime minister at the time Kyriakos Mitsotakis of lying and saying that he informed him before the election about alleged machinations of the Turkish consulate in the region of Rhodope in […]
(Kathimerini) Leftist leader Alexis Tsipras has met with Greece’s interim Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas amid the confrontation between SYRIZA and New Democracy over the Muslim minority in the northern Thrace region. Conservative officials have alleged that the May 21 election result in […]
(Kathimerini) SYRIZA has accused New Democracy of “blatantly underestimating the democratic vote of members of the Muslim minority” in Thrace after New Democracy said that two of SYRIZA’s MPs elected in the last election in the northeastern region were exponents of “the […]
(Kathimerini) Two suspects of Pakistani origin are set to appear before an investigating magistrate on Friday on charges of planning an attack on a Jewish center in the busy downtown area of Psyri. The suspects allegedly received orders from a fellow Pakistani […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(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 […]
(Kathimerini) Citizens’ Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos on Friday dismissed recent statements by a Turkish minister that Greece is a “training center for terrorists” as provocative and outright lies. Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Greece was training members of the Kurdistan Workers’ […]
(Kathimerini) A day after police said they found 38 migrants who had been reported stranded on an islet in the Evros River on the Greek-Turkish border, Greece on Tuesday accused Turkey of pushing the migrants into Greek territory. During a visit to […]
(Kathimerini) Greece rejected claims by Turkey that a new legal framework on the election of Muslim clerics (muftis) in Thrace, northeastern Greece, denies the community the right to elect their own muftis, saying it is “fully compatible with the constitution of Greece […]
(Kathimerini) Greece’s Foreign Ministry has issued a terse response to allegations from Turkey regarding the closure of four minority primary schools in the northeastern province of Thrace, which Ankara claims constitutes a violation of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne provisions safeguarding the […]
(Kathimerini) Despite repeatedly criticizing Greece for appointing the Muslim community’s muftis in the region of Thrace, Turkey also appoints its own muftis at a central level, via a state agency, Greek diplomatic sources pointed out on Tuesday, highlighting “the hypocrisy of Turkey’s […]
(Kathimerini) Amid rising acrimony with Turkey, plans are being drafted to deal with the possibility of an attempted mass entry of migrants into Greece at the instigation of Ankara in a repeat of the spring 2020 incident at the Evros land border. […]
(Kathimerini) Police on Rhodes announced on Monday that they arrested four foreigners suspected of involvement in a criminal organization that trafficked migrants to the island. Those arrested come from Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. The group allegedly collected migrants from beaches and transported […]
(Kathimerini) Greece told Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday that there is no provision in the Treaty of Lausanne, a 1923 peace accord which, among other things, forged modern Greece and Turkey’s borders, stating that the muftis of the Muslim minority […]
(Kathimerini) In an operation carried out with help from the European police agency Europol, law enforcement authorities in northern Greece have dismantled what they believe to be a large migrant smuggling ring. According to an announcement released by the Hellenic Police (ELAS) […]
(Kathimerini) Ankara has taken its allegations of human rights violations by Greece to the United Nations, accusing it of pushbacks and refugee and migrant deaths in the Aegean. The Turkish allegations are included in the letter sent by the permanent representative of […]
(Kathimerini) Coast guard[s] on Kos have arrested four people — two Greeks and two non-nationals — on suspicion of smuggling migrants from the Turkish coast to the island for €4,000 a person. The arrests followed the discovery of a speedboat on January […]
(Kathimerini) The municipal council of Orestiada in northeastern Greece is convening Tuesday to discuss controversial plans by the government to expand a migrant reception and identification center on the outskirts of the border village of Fylakio. The plan for the center is […]
(Kathimerini) A growing number of residents on the eastern Aegean island of Chios are opposing the planned creation of a closed camp for migrants. Reactions culminated during Thursday’s public holiday, when several hundred residents gathered at the port to prevent machinery that […]
(Kathimerini) Residents and local officials on the island of Chios have blocked a ship carrying construction machinery for the new planned migrant “closed controlled access center” from docking on Thursday. Residents of the island had also blocked the ship from docking at […]
(Kathimerini) An estimated 11,900 refugees and migrants crammed onto 120 yachts or sailboats are believed to have made it from Turkey to Italy via Greece this year, as the method has been gaining popularity among migrant smuggling rackets on the other side […]
(Kathimerini) A 40-year-old Iraqi man was remanded in prison on Monday after he testified before a prosecutor about his alleged involvement in the ISIS terrorist organization. The man was arrested by counterterror officers in central Athens last week on suspicion of involvement […]
(Kathimerini) Greek intelligence and counterterror authorities had been keeping a close eye on a 39-year-old Iraqi suspected of large-scale migrant smuggling before the official launch of the operation against him earlier this month, Kathimerini has learned. According to court records, Thakir M. […]
(Kathimerini) The government will expand the border fence with Turkey in the country’s northeast by 26km, Civil Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos told MPs on Friday. Addressing the Parliamentary Committee on National Defense and Foreign Affair[s], he said in addition to repairing the […]
(Kathimerini) A 39-year-old Iraqi who was arrested in central Athens on Tuesday on migrant trafficking charges is on a list of Islamic terrorism suspects, state officials have confirmed to Kathimerini. Mohammed T. was arrested with an Egyptian, nicknamed “Abu George,” in an […]
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