Croatia pledges to take unaccompanied minors out of Greek camps
Croatia has said it is willing to accept unaccompanied minors from Greek refugee reception centres as tensions rise over conditions on the Aegean islands.
“Croatia has a certain capacity and has previously received children from crisis situations,” Croatian Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Sunday in Zagreb.
Bozinovic did not say how many unaccompanied minors Croatia would be willing to accept but said he would await the findings of EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson’s visit to Greece next week.
Around 116,000 refugees and migrants are currently living in Greece, according to figures from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
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Among them are an estimated 5,500 unaccompanied minors – defined as children under 18 without parents or a guardian, according to the National Center for Social Solidarity (EKKA).
EKKA estimated in January that more than 3,000 unaccompanied minors are living in catastrophically overcrowded temporary reception centres, insecure housing, squats or on the streets.
Some 42,000 people are currently housed in overcrowded reception centres on the Greek islands, in and around structures built to hold just 8,000.
Numbers of daily arrivals by sea to the Greek islands have jumped since Turkey said it would open its border on February 29. Thousands more are stranded on Turkey’s land border with Greece.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis plans to close old, overcrowded centres on the islands and replace them with new facilities. The plans have met with vehement protests from locals. (dpa)
