After 21 residents in a migrant camp near Athens tested positive for the Coronavirus, Greece on Thursday sealed off the camp. Although, hours before the new cases were announced, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had praised health safeguards at Greek camps.
“From today the facility is placed under sanitary isolation for two weeks,” the migration ministry said in a statement.
Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi on Thursday told EU officials that Greece had nominally resumed accepting asylum claims, a procedure suspended in March amid a push by Turkey to encourage a migrant surge.
“This freeze is no longer applicable, from April 1 we’ve gone back to the normal procedures,” the minister said.
But Mitarachi noted that the move cannot yet be applied owing to the Coronavirus lockdown.
“For technical reasons, those arriving (from April 1) will not be able to submit a claim for some time because asylum offices are closed,” the minister told Proto Thema radio on Wednesday.
The ministry said that of 63 people subsequently tested at Ritsona, some 80 kilometers north of Athens, 20 were positive but without symptoms.
No staff were found to be carrying the virus, it said.
All access to Ritsona camp has been restricted and food will be delivered to the residents, the migration ministry said. Additional medical staff will be sent to the area and all residents will be screened, it added.
