A group of 50 refugees – 16 unaccompanied children and 34 adults being reunited with their families – departed for the United Kingdom on Monday morning in an aircraft that will also carry 130 Greek nationals returning to Greece from the UK. The Greek nationals were stranded in UK during the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The departure was held in the presence of Alternate Migration and Asylum Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos, the UK Ambassador to Greece Kate Smith and the special secretary for the Protection of Unaccompanied Children Irini Agapidaki.

Koumoutsakos underlined that “this dual purpose flight that will positively change the lives of almost 200 people is the result of a persistent and low profile work and cooperation of the Ministries of Migration, Foreign Affairs and Civil Protection as well as of the collaboration of Greece and the UK. It is a proof and confirmation that the modern challenges that today exceed the borders and capacity of each individual country can only be addressed through international collaboration and by joining forces”.

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He also noted that this was the first step in the implementation of the Greece-UK joint action plan signed a few days earlier on migration.

On her part, the UK envoy expressed her satisfaction as “we achieved the first real result of the action plan that we signed two weeks ago,” adding that the UK wants to continue to cooperate with the Greek government in the context of the Dublin Treaty that is now under review. “Our intention is, despite our withdrawal from EU, to continue the reunification of children with their families in Britain and we are doing whatever possible to continue to bring this result in the future,” she said.

The arrangements for the flight were agreed between Koumoutsakos and UK Minister for Immigration Compliance Chris Philp during talks that that led to the signing of a Greece-UK strategic action plan on cooperation in addressing the international challenge of migration.

source amna.gr