U.N. faults Greece on influx

Aliens should be treated as ‘emergency,’ official says

Foreigners wait outside a camp Friday in Traiskirchen, Austria. Austria is working on a plan in which the federal government would shelter asylum seekers on government property.
Foreigners wait outside a camp Friday in Traiskirchen, Austria. Austria is working on a plan in which the federal government would shelter asylum seekers on government property.

ATHENS, Greece -- Greek authorities need to "wake up" and do more to adequately accommodate a burgeoning number of foreign arrivals that has become a full-blown humanitarian emergency requiring a natural disaster-like response, a senior official with the United Nations refugee agency said Friday.

The agency's Europe Bureau Director Vincent Cochetel said more than 109,000 people have arrived in Greece since the beginning of the year, most of them Syrians and Afghans fleeing war and violence in their homelands. Most aim to relocate to other European countries.

Meanwhile, Hungary's foreign minister said more than 100,000 foreigners have reached Hungary so far this year, nearly all of them entering through its southern border with Serbia.

Peter Szijjarto said both Hungary and Serbia are facing "unprecedented immigration pressure" and that more people are coming to the European Union on the land route across the Balkans than by crossing the Mediterranean.

"This means that this year in the European Union, the highest number of illegal immigrants has arrived in Hungary," Szijjarto said after reopening a border crossing with his Serbian counterpart, Ivica Dacic, near the Hungarian village of Roszke and Horgos in Serbia.

Speaking at a news conference, the U.N.'s Cochetel said some Greek islands receive up to 1,000 arrivals each day from neighboring Turkey. But neither national nor local authorities have mobilized to the degree needed to effectively deal with the influx.

"We just want to have some people in charge and coordinating; that's what we need," Cochetel said. "We need to step up the emergency response again as if it was a natural disaster."

He said Greek officials must "get serious" about building more centers to provide shelter, food and other services to meet people's basic needs.

Cochetel said the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is aware of Greece's acute financial crisis, but still noted that the country hasn't increased its 1,100-person refugee housing capacity in six years.

The official described facilities for refugees and other foreigners on all Greek islands as "bad," accusing local authorities of shirking their responsibility to provide people with the essentials.

Cochetel said that on the island of Kos, authorities haven't stepped up to provide electricity and running water to one empty building that could be turned into a housing site.

He added that he is not convinced that Greek authorities are incapable of finding adequate accommodations for about 500 Afghans now living in a park in central Athens.

"There are so many empty buildings in this country, so much land not cultivated," Cochetel said. "Don't tell me it's impossible to find a site for those people."

He said the EU needs to show more solidarity with Greece. Plans to relocate as many as 16,000 people from Greece to other European nations is "a step in the right direction but clearly insufficient" in light of the huge increase in arrivals.

The refugee agency and other humanitarian organizations are ready to assist Greece in coping with the huge numbers of refugees and other foreigners, but the government needs to take action and show that it's living up to its responsibilities, Cochetel said.

"We're not going to take the responsibility of the Greek authorities to manage reception centers, to manage arrivals," he said.

Speaking earlier in Parliament, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras defended his government's track record in dealing with the crisis in the six months it has been in power.

He said his government is moving ahead with creating reception areas on the mainland and on the islands, including on Kos, and is in the process of finding adequate accommodations for the Afghans living in the Athens park.

Tsipras stressed that his government would never "leave people around us to perish from hunger or the cold," but urged other EU nations to assume their share of the burden.

Elsewhere, Austria's federal government plans to change the country's constitution in an attempt to end a standoff with provincial leaders over finding housing for a massive influx of foreigners.

The plan, announced Friday, would allow the federal government to provide shelter for foreigners seeking asylum anywhere in Austria on and in property owned by the government.

Any change in the constitution would need a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The government coalition hopes to achieve that through support from the opposition Greens.

And in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron offered Friday to send sniffer dogs and fencing to help control the surge in foreigners trying to cross into the U.K., pledging to work closely with French authorities to get a grip on the crisis.

Cameron led an emergency security meeting just after returning from a trip to Asia, and he said he would speak later in the day with French President Francois Hollande as part of efforts to work "hand in glove" with France. Land belonging to the Ministry of Defense may be used to ease congestion near the Channel Tunnel.

"We rule nothing out in taking action to deal with this very serious problem," he said. "We are absolutely on it."

Thousands of people have been scaling fences near the tunnel, hopping on freight trains or trucks destined for the U.K.

Information for this article was contributed by Pablo Gorondi, Danica Kirka, Raf Casert and staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 08/01/2015

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