German mass daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week referred to a growing trend of voluntary repatriations of third country migrants stranded in Greece, in an article filed from Athens.
“At a time when, on the one hand, daily arrivals of migrants have increased over the past few weeks on Greek islands, on the other hand, thousands of migrants have voluntarily abandoned Greece to return to their homelands,” FAZ writes.
The newspaper cites figures provided by Greek authorities, whereby 16,003 asylum seekers departed from the country with the assistance of the International Organization for Migration. Most of the repatriated third country nationals hailed from Albania, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and North African countries, according to the report.
FAZ also quoted a Greek law enforcement official as saying the trend is due to the fact that they “realized that there were no chances of being granted asylum by the EU.”
