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Refugees in Greece reflect on another year of waiting
[Al Jazeera] Closed borders, racism, xenophobic attacks, rejected asylum applications, poverty and lengthy waits.

These experiences are what many refugees and migrants colonists in Greece say defined 2017 for them.

More than 60,000 refugees and migrants colonists are trapped in Greece due to sealed borders across the so-called Balkan route and the March 2016 deal between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
 and the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, which was sculpted to stem the flow of displaced people to Europe.

That deal has been roundly condemned by rights groups and watchdogs.

More than 15,000 refugees and migrants colonists have been confined to Greek islands by a government policy that bars them from moving to the mainland until their asylum procedures have been completed.

Although arrivals sharply decreased after the EU-Turkey deal, the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
 refugee agency (UNHCR) statistics say that more than 170,317 people made the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean Sea in 2017.

At least 3,081 died or went missing along the way.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, some refugees in Greece explained that they no longer feel welcome, while others said they have started to build their lives from scratch.
Posted by: Fred 2018-01-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=504954