Holy synod says services will be held at places of worship on Wednesday despite closure rules in Greece
The Greek Orthodox church has announced it will defy government lockdown orders aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus and open places of worship to mark Epiphany this Wednesday.
After an emergency session of the holy synod, its governing body, senior clerics said they would press ahead as planned and celebrate the baptism of Christ on 6 January.
Continue reading...Mosque beset by difficulties finally to allow in worshippers thanks to relaxation of Greece’s Covid restrictions
Christmas has been greeted with enthusiasm by Muslim worshippers in Athens after the modern Greek capital’s first official mosque – forced to close only days after its inauguration in November – was told it could reopen for the holiday.
Relaxation of a national lockdown to enable Greek Orthodox faithful to attend mass on Christmas Day means the mosque will also be able to operate.
Continue reading...Desperate relatives in Britain plead with Home Office for flexibility as paperwork holdups delay family reunions while deadline looms
The Home Office has said it will not allow a group of stranded refugee children to join their families in the UK if their cases do not make it through the Greek asylum system by 31 December when the EU family reunification programme comes to an end.
Around 20 children who are eligible to join their relatives in the UK under the current family reunification scheme are still waiting for their cases to be completed in Greece, before the UK government ends the programme when it leaves the EU on the 31st December.
Continue reading...Mental health problems are spiralling among adults and children at ‘Moria 2:0’ camp as winter sets in and security tightens
Nadia hasn’t slept. The mother of five spent last night trying to soothe her seven-year-old son, Matin, who is autistic, while heavy rain fell on the family’s tent. He was crying and asking for the noise to stop. “I tried to explain to him that the rain is not in our control,” she says, “but in these moments, you can’t reach him any more.”
The family, originally from Parwan province in Afghanistan, are living in the new refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos that was built in three days, after the fire that razed to the ground parts of the infamous Moria camp.
Continue reading...Zak Kostopoulos’s family say murder charges must be brought in a case that has exposed deep homophobia
Days after his death in the heart of Athens, the image of Zak Kostopoulos began to appear across the city centre, on buildings and nondescript office blocks, the marble steps of neoclassical mansions, walls and columns.
On Gladstonos street there were also words, some sprayed, some stencilled, some handwritten, but all amounting to the same thing: a memorial to a man who dared to be different.
Continue reading...One in three on Aegean isles have contemplated suicide amid EU containment policies, report reveals
Years of entrapment on Aegean islands has resulted in a mental health crisis for thousands of refugees, with one in three contemplating suicide, a report compiled by psychosocial support experts has revealed.
Containment policies pursued by the EU have also spurred ever more people to attempt to end their lives, according to the report released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Thursday.
Continue reading...Man with right to asylum in Germany allegedly stripped of papers and expelled in ‘refugee pushback’ while searching for 11-year-old brother
In the latest allegation that Greek authorities are illegally expelling refugees , lawyers will this week file a case at the UN human rights committee on behalf of a Syrian man living in Germany, who says he was picked up and sent to Turkey while he searched for his brother in Greece.
The 26-year-old told the Guardian that he had been detained and forced into a boat to Turkey in November 2016. His papers were confiscated which meant he was not able to return to Germany, where he had been granted asylum, for three years.
Continue reading...Afghan asylum seeker accused of endangering six-year-old’s life after family tried to reach Greek island of Samos from Turkey
The father of a six-year-old who died trying to reach the Greek island of Samos from the Turkish coast has been charged by Greek authorities with endangering his son’s life.
Abdul*, 25, from Afghanistan, faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. The cause of his son’s death has not been confirmed.
Continue reading...‘Provocative’ trip to northern Cyprus angers residents as well as the south and Greece
Turkey’s president has been greeted with protests from Turkish Cypriots denouncing Ankara’s overt meddling in their domestic affairs as he visited northern Cyprus.
In a rare display of opposition for a leader whose tolerance for critics is notoriously low, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was met by demonstrators as he flew into the territory for celebrations marking its unilateral declaration of independence 37 years ago.
Continue reading...Tourists can return to crumbling resort in northern Cyprus – but Turkey’s involvement has caused anger
Pavlos Iakovou was 17 when he met his wife, Tuolla, at the Edelweiss cafe in Famagusta, the fashionable Cypriot holiday resort where his family owned a hotel. Last week, the couple returned to some of their old haunts in the abandoned quarter of Varosha, or Maraş in Turkish, for the first time in 46 years.
Sealed off as a militarised zone and untouched since 1974, when Turkey invaded following a Greek coup, the decaying slice of 1970s glamour is now open again to visitors – Greek Cypriots included.
Continue reading...Drone footage captured buildings reduced to piles of rubble in the Turkish city of İzmir on Friday after a strong earthquake struck the Aegean Sea, setting off tidal waves which slammed into coastal areas and islands. Search and rescue operations continued at 17 collapsed or damaged buildings, Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency said.
Continue reading...Footage shows the aftermath of a deadly earthquake that struck in the Aegean sea and toppled buildings in the Turkish city of İzmir and the Greek island of Samos.
The earthquake struck about 11 miles (17km) off the coast of İzmir, causing a number of deaths and widespread damage.
Witnesses captured the moment buildings collapsed and sea water flooding in both Samos and İzmir
Continue reading...At least 27 reported dead and 800 injured in quake that hit İzmir in Turkey and Greek island of Samos
Rescue teams searched through concrete blocks and rubble on Saturday after at least 27 people were killed and hundreds injured when a powerful earthquake in the Aegean Sea toppled buildings in the Turkish city of İzmir and created sea surges on at least two Greek islands.
Turkey’s disaster and emergency authority (Afad) said the quake on Friday, measuring about 7.0 in magnitude, struck at 2.51pm local time (11.51am GMT). with 407 aftershocks recorded overnight. Around 800 people were reported injured.
Continue reading...A powerful earthquake in the Aegean Sea has toppled buildings in the Turkish city of İzmir and caused damage in several Greek islands
Continue reading...An earthquake has struck in the Aegean Sea, flattening buildings in Greece and Turkey. Footage shows buildings reduced to rubble in the Manavkuyu neighbourhood of İzmir, a city on Turkey's Aegean coast.
The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at magnitude 7.0 and said tremors were felt as far away as Athens and Istanbul
Continue reading...Another teenager was seriously injured in the incident in Rhodes, says coastguard
Two British teenagers have been killed and a third seriously injured in a parasailing incident on the Greek island of Rhodes, authorities have said.
“A 13-year-old girl and a young man of 15 were found dead on the rocks near the city of Lindos in Rhodes,” the Greek coastguard’s press office said.
Continue reading...Evidence including footage of Frontex ship making waves near a migrant dinghy appears to contradict agency’s denial of involvement in pushbacks
The EU’s border agency has been accused of complicity in illegal and often dangerous pushbacks aimed at preventing asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea.
Even as evidence of an aggressive maritime campaign by Greece has emerged, Frontex has denied knowledge of, or involvement in, pushbacks. But new evidence, including video footage showing a Frontex ship manoeuvring dangerously near a crowded dinghy full of people and creating waves that drove them back, appears to contradict the EU agency.
Continue reading...Greek neo-Nazi ideologue Christos Pappas will not turn himself in, says lawyer
Greek authorities have been forced to acknowledge that the neo-Nazi ideologue behind Golden Dawn’s unhindered embrace of national socialism has evaded arrest as other members of the extremist group headed to prison.
In an admission that is likely to raise embarrassing questions, police said on Friday they had been unable to find Christos Pappas, the party’s de-facto number two.
Continue reading...Police say mobile sirens and surveillance cameras also used to deter crossings into EU
Greece has begun extending a border wall along its frontier with Turkey to deter migrants from trying to enter the European Union, the Greek government has said, after a border standoff earlier this year which has helped drive Greek-Turkish relations to a dangerously low ebb.
A total of 16 miles (26km) of wall will be added to the existing 6 mile fence along the Evros River, which forms much of the Greek-Turkish border, the government spokesperson Stelios Petsas said on Monday.
Continue reading...Ersin Tatar, who favours even closer ties with Turkey, defeats incumbent Mustafa Akinci
A rightwing hardliner who has long advocated closer ties with Turkey has won a presidential runoff in the Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.
Ersin Tatar, whose candidacy had been openly endorsed by Ankara, garnered 51.74% of the vote once all ballots had been counted, local media reported.
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