47 unaccompanied minor refugees, who had recently lived in camps on the Greek islands, have landed at Hannover Airport in Germany today.
They will initially be housed for a two-week quarantine before being distributed to the federal states. As the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced, there are 42 children and five adolescents, four of whom are accompanied by younger siblings. Four of the minors are girls.
„I am delighted that we can receive the first unaccompanied children today – despite the severe stress caused by the corona crisis,“ said Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU). Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) described the arrival of the refugee children as a start.
NGOs: just a start
The departure of the children and adolescents can only be a start when it comes to relieving the completely overcrowded and unreasonable camps on the Greek islands, said the German representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Frank Remus, the dpa.
The human rights organization Pro Asyl criticized the small number of those admitted. „The total failure of the countries of Europe is concealed by word,“ explained managing director Günter Burkhardt. „Thousands would have to be evacuated from Morias hell,“ he said, referring to the largest of the camps on the island of Lesbos.
