Geneva/Athens, May 25th, 2016. CARE International and its partner organization SolidarityNow ask EU member states to urgently act on their own commitments to relocate refugees from Greece to other countries in the European Union. “The EU needs to act decisively and establish an effective process to quickly relocate 46,000 people. This is the only long-term solution to alleviate the urgent humanitarian situation. Clearing informal camps such as Idomeni doesn’t help to end refugees’ waiting limbo,” says Thomas Rottland, CARE’s team leader in Greece.

The EU’s target of relocating at least 20,000 persons by mid-May has not been met, although it estimates that between 35,000 and 40,000 persons in Greece are eligible for relocation. So far, only 979 have been transferred to other EU member states. Most refugees could not even start their relocation or family reunification process while in Greece. They have to call a hotline via skype, but with a narrow timeframe it becomes quickly overwhelmed with the number of calls. In fact, the hotlines can only take around 300 calls per week. “Refugees are telling us that making an appointment is like winning the lottery. The people here have lived through years of war and had to leave everything behind.” Many refugees have told CARE and SolidarityNow that they had stayed in one of the official camps before and do not want to go back to these isolated locations. “They described the situation in these camps as being worse than in Idomeni. It is not acceptable that they have to wait in yet another camp fearing that the world is forgetting their plight.”

Greek police started on Tuesday to move the approximately 8,000 migrants and refugees stranded in a makeshift camp on the sealed Northern border with FYROM to facilities run by the state. Most of the refugees in Greece were on their way to Western Europe to reunite with their families, women and children being the majority. They now live in over 35 overcrowded accommodation sites, without proper access to sanitary facilities, quality food and protection.

“This crisis is absolutely avoidable. Its solution is in the hands of European governments. They have the means and the expertise to provide Greece with the support it has requested. Additional capacity from European governments is urgently needed to improve the humanitarian situation. Most importantly, refugees need to be able to start their requests for relocation and family reunification”, says Epaminondas Farmakis, Managing Director of SolidarityNow. And he continues: “Unfortunately, at the World Humanitarian Summit, world leaders did not agree on concrete actions to help end those conflicts, which endanger the lives of millions of people and have caused them to flee terror and desperation”.