The Guardian | 07.09.2017
Recent migration waves have left refugees and asylum seekers struggling to survive. On Tilos, 50 refugees have been not only integrated but enabled
David Patrikarakos
‘Sorry, please one cigarette, my friend.” The man is young: early 20s at the most, Syrian I think. He and many others from across the Middle East and Africa patrol Exarchia Square in central Athens. Bereft of work, they beg for change. Often they turn to selling pirated DVDs, tissues or, occasionally, drugs.
The great migration wave of 2015 saw around a million people make asylum requests in the 28 EU states. The UN high commissioner for refugees was clear on the severity of the situation: since the second world war, he said, there have never been so many refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people. And still they are coming. According to the European commission, the number of people seeking asylum from non-EU countries in the EU28 during the first quarter of 2017 reached 164,500.