Ban on air travel between Britain and Greece to continue until June 30, unlike other countries
It was meant to be the moment when Greece “welcomed the world”. But in another about-turn, travellers on flights from the UK will not be accepted when the Mediterranean country reopens to tourism on Monday.
Bowing to new advice from the EU, Athens announced on Friday that the suspension of air links with Britain, in effect since March, will continue to be enforced until 30 June.
Continue reading...Infections keep falling in EU but reports suggest Russian death toll much higher than official figures
France is to lift its state of emergency on 10 July, Denmark said opening its bars, restaurants and malls had not led to a rise in infections, and Austria will reopen its border with Italy next week as EU nations pursue their steady exits from lockdown.
However, Germany extended its coronavirus travel warnings for more than 160 countries outside Europe until the end of August and reports suggested that Moscow’s death toll may be twice as high as Russia’s official figures.
Continue reading...All 91 travellers put in quarantine after 12 test positive, illustrating risk of welcoming back tourists
Greece has been forced to confront the risks of restarting international tourism after authorities announced that 12 out of 91 passengers onboard a Qatar Airlines flight to Athens had tested positive for coronavirus.
The civil protection ministry responded by suspending air links to and from the Arab state until 15 June. All 91 travellers on the flight were immediately placed in quarantine.
Continue reading...Agreements to exempt tourists from coronavirus quarantine restrictions are complicated
Public health experts and officials have warned that the idea of “air bridge” links between the UK and overseas holiday destinations may prove impossible this summer, amid continued concern over how they could operate safely.
A number of Conservative MPs are pushing for air bridges – mutual agreements with other countries to allow travellers to fly in and out without coronavirus quarantine restrictions – ahead of the imposition of the UK’s 14-day quarantine system next week.
Continue reading...In Moria, Europe’s largest migrant camp, tensions are rising as life is more restricted and the threat of Covid-19 is ever present
Children fly kites between tents in the shadow of barbed wire fences as life continues in Europe’s largest refugee camp. There are 17,421 people living here in a space designed for just under 3,000. Residents carrying liquid soap and water barrels encourage everyone to wash their hands as they pass by, refugees and aid workers alike. While Moria remains untouched by the pandemic, the spectre of coronavirus still looms heavy.
Greece is poised to open up to tourism in the coming months and bars and restaurants are reopening this week. Movement restrictions were lifted for the general population on 4 May but have been extended for refugees living in all the island camps and a number of mainland camps until 7 June.
Continue reading...Mexico and Peru struggle to contain outbreaks while deaths in Spain fall to two-month low
Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Brazil have surpassed the total in Italy and are surging in Mexico and Peru as Latin America struggles to contain its fast-growing coronavirus outbreak.
Spain announced that 87 people had died there in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, the first time the figure has been below 100 in more than two months and a sign the virus is being contained in western Europe as it continues to spread aggressively in Russia, India and parts of Africa.
Continue reading...NGOs say infections among arriving refugees show urgent need to move more migrants from Moria camp to mainland
Two migrants arriving by sea to the Greek island of Lesbos tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday, leading to increased calls for evacuation of the overcrowded local camps.
The Moria camp in Lesbos has so far not reported cases of the virus, though two other camps and a hotel where asylum-seekers are staying were locked down in April after positive coronavirus tests were returned.
Continue reading...Vulnerable people from Greek refugee camps reunited with close family at Heathrow
Some 47 highly vulnerable migrants have arrived in the UK on an “unprecedented” family reunion flight from Greece.
British refugees travelled to Heathrow to greet nephews, brothers, husbands and wives after Monday’s flight brought people from Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan to join close family in the UK. The reunion was the result of two months of intense lobbying by the campaign group Safe Passage and the British peer Alf Dubs.
Continue reading...Group including teenagers Walid and Mustafa will be reunited with relatives after grim odyssey
Until last week, Walid and Mustafa had never met. Owing to their disparate backgrounds, they might not have had anything in common, bar their age: both turned 18 this year.
But the fresh-faced, bright-eyed teenagers have been brought together by a common desire to escape danger in their respective homelands – Syria and Somalia – and rebuild lives shattered by war.
Continue reading...Campaigners ‘overjoyed’ at landmark ruling but say review of planning laws still needed
A battle over the right to enjoy uninterrupted views of the Acropolis has resulted in a five-star hotel being ordered to demolish its top two floors, in a landmark ruling hailed by residents of Athens.
Owned by Coco-Mat, the Greece-based mattress maker, the hotel — whose “breathtaking terrace” had been its selling point — opened its doors barely a year ago. Citizens enraged about the ten-storey establishment blocking their own views of the citadel took the case to the highest court in the land.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Greek PM intervenes to help 50 asylum seekers reach UK despite ban on direct flights
An unprecedented family reunion rescue flight is due to leave Athens, bringing 52 vulnerable migrants, including several minors, to join family in the UK.
The flight on Monday is the result of intense efforts by refugee families in the UK with the support of campaign group Safe Passage and the peer Alf Dubs. It was organised with collaboration from the UK and Greek governments after direct flights between Greece and the UK were suspended in March.
Continue reading...Still resilient after taking tough and early action, Greece can now look forward to a summer tourist season beginning in July
When Pavlos Pandelides realised the coronavirus pandemic was moving west, he bought a plane ticket and flew from Athens to London. He then drove north to Nottingham to collect his daughter, a student at the city’s university, before returning with her the next day to Greece. An ardent admirer of all things British, the businessman had absolutely no doubt that what he was doing was right. “The British are fighters but I could see they were underestimating this,” he said.
While Covid-19 was tearing through northern Italy, Boris Johnson was still faltering, with his government showing worrying signs of complacency. There was, said Pandelides, no time to waste. “It was more than a protective father thing. It was clear they were about to really mess up.”
Continue reading...Search and rescue mission that began after Wednesday’s crash is called off with one body and additional remains found
Five missing crew members of a Canadian navy helicopter that crashed during a Nato operation this week into the Mediterranean Sea are presumed dead.
A search and rescue mission that began on Wednesday when the aircraft with six crew on board went missing has been turned into a recovery effort, the Canadian defence ministry said in a statement on Friday.
Continue reading...Packed pools, beaches and tour buses will not return immediately as country plans for scaled back 2020 season
Packed pools, beaches and tour buses, as well as middle seats on planes, hotel minibars and scrums at airport check-ins, may all be a thing of the past as Europe’s tourism industry attempts to reimagine the holiday in the wake of the coronavirus.
Travel will take place only under “specific new rules”, Greece’s tourism minister has said as he prepares to propose ways of salvaging the sector with his EU counterparts in the era of Covid-19 on Monday.
Continue reading...As WHO warns no evidence exists to suggest people can’t catch Covid-19 twice, India, Belgium and Greece among latest countries to ease lockdowns
The global toll from Covid-19 passed 200,000 on Saturday, with over 2.8 million people infected, as the WHO warned against issuing “immunity passports” because there is no evidence people who recovered from the disease are protected against a second infection.
It took more than three months after the coronavirus first emerged for deaths from the disease to pass 100,000, a grim milestone that was reached on 10 April. It took just over two weeks for that toll to double, and worldwide the number of confirmed infections is creeping towards 3 million.
Continue reading...The two victims were taken to hospital, police said, after the incident at the overcrowded Moria camp
Two asylum-seekers have been hospitalised with light injuries after gunshots were fired into Greece’s largest migrant camp on the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos.
The unknown assailant or assailants evaded arrest, while the two injured migrants were taken to the island’s hospital as a precaution, police said on Wednesday. No further detail was provided.
Continue reading...Iraqi woman, 47, dies after going to hospital with fever but testing negative for Covid-19
A fire ripped through one of Greece’s largest migrant camps, leaving widespread damage and many people homeless after the death of an Iraqi woman sparked unrest.
The blaze late on Saturday at the Vial refugee camp on Chios island destroyed the facilities of the European asylum service, a canteen, warehouse tents and many housing containers, Greek migration ministry secretary Manos Logothetis said.
Continue reading...Swallows and swifts on their annual flight from Africa to Europe have been found dead across Greece
Thousands of swallows and swifts migrating from Africa to Europe have been left dead by high winds battering Greece, bird watchers say.
The birds have been found in the streets of Athens, on apartment balconies in the capital, in the north, on Aegean islands and around a lake close to the seaport of Nauplia in the Peloponnese.
Continue reading...Luxembourg to take in 11 minors after member states and Switzerland pledge to find homes for 1,600
Eleven children trapped on Greek islands will be flown to Luxembourg next week, the first of a European Union migrant relocation scheme that highlights the uncertain fate of thousands.
The group will leave Chios and Lesbos for Luxembourg as part of an EU voluntary effort to help the most vulnerable quit Greece’s desperately overcrowded refugee and migrant island camps.
Continue reading...Calls grow for EU countries to accept refugees as outbreaks fuel fears that virus could rampage through overcrowded facilities
The spectre of coronavirus striking severely overcrowded refugee camps in Greece has hovered menacingly for months.
International aid organisations, human rights groups and doctors have sounded the alarm. With the spread of the pandemic, calls for action to prevent impending medical catastrophe have become shriller. In Aegean islands on the frontline of the crisis, health carers speak of days gained, not won.
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