Greece faces 'emergency' as number of child refugee arrivals soars

Greece is facing a refugee "children's emergency" as the number of unaccompanied minors reaching the country rises and concern grows over a lack of safe places to host them.

- Helena Smith

Thousands of children arrived this year via a new trafficking route from Libya to Crete, leading to calls for emergency measures that would allow them to be transferred to protected shelters or other EU member states. "What we are seeing amounts to a children's emergency of the kind we haven't witnessed in years," said Sofia Kouvelaki, who leads the Home Project, which supports refugee and migrant children in Athens.

Ten years after Greece was at the centre of a refugee crisis when nearly 1 million EU-bound asylum seekers crossed its borders, child arrivals have doubled between 2023 and 2024, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. More than 13,000 minors arrived in the country by sea in the first 11 months of this year. Landings by unaccompanied and separated children have also risen sharply, from 1,490 in 2023 to approximately 3,000 so far this year.