Some news and numbers from Greece, Greek islands, and the EU-Turkey agrreement: Pressure remains high on the Aegean islands with thousands of migrants continuing to arrive and few leaving:
„A total of 30,565 migrants landed on the Greek islands from Turkey between March 20 last year and April 4 of this year, according to European Commission figures. In the same period, only 944 migrants were returned to Turkey in line with the Ankara-EU deal.“
„The average waiting time for migrants appealing against the rejection of their initial applications is six months. Of the 2,580 appeals that have been lodged by migrants on the islands over the past year, only 1,300 have received decisions (and of those decisions fewer than 100 are positive).
To accelerate the process, the European Commission has asked Greek authorities to increase the number of panels examining migrants’ appeals to 20 from the current 12, up from just five in January.
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From another source: According to Frontex, out of these 30,565 people, 1,690 migrants reached Greece in March.