Greece has suspended all decisions on asylum applications by Syrians after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, told a news agency, “We are temporarily freezing … all procedures (for Syrians) until we have evaluated the new data.”

Greece, the entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Europe, is the latest to suspend asylum decisions after Assad’s ouster.

The announcement came as Save the Children and the Greek Council for Refugees urged the government to take immediate steps to improve living conditions in remote migrant reception camps.

Migrant and refugee arrivals to Greece rose to a five-year high in 2024, with more than 57,300 people entering the country in the first 11 months of the year, the charities said, quoting UN refugee agency (UNHCR) data.

Of those, more than 13,000 were children who arrived by sea – up about 50% on 2023, they added.

The NGOs said children and their families should be moved to reception centres in towns and cities from the moment they arrive and seek asylum because of conditions in the camps.

Children in the camps have reported “alarming” conditions, including poor-quality and out-of-date food. There has also been a lack of child-protection measures and access to schooling or mental health support, as well as violence, reports AFP.

Save the Children Europe’s Director and EU representative, Willy Bergogne, said, “The EU and Greek authorities have a moral and legal obligation to act urgently to improve the conditions in the camps and protect these children and ensure they have access to safety, adequate services, and dignity.”

The Director of the Greek Council for Refugees, Lefteris Papagiannakis, also said that the situation at the reception camps was longstanding.

“But what is surprising is that, after almost 10 years of enhanced experience in managing the reception of asylum seekers in Greece, we’re witnessing an ongoing downgrading in essential service provision, including services for children.”
Lefteris Papagiannakis

Ireland also joined the list of European countries to suspend the processing of asylum applications by refugees from Syria.

The Irish Minister for justice told a news agency that the international protection office would temporarily pause the issuing of final determinations while the situation in Syria was kept under review.

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK have all announced similar moves.

UK To Monitor Situation In Syria

Meanwhile, Yvette Cooper, the UK Home Secretary, said that the government would be monitoring the situation in Syria before deciding whether or not to lift the pause on asylum applications from Syrians.

She stated that many of the claims that have been made, were made against the Assad regime for asylum, which is clearly not in place. “It would therefore not be appropriate to be granting asylum decisions on those cases in the current circumstances,” she noted.

“We do need to monitor the evolving situation so that we can get new country guidance in place and so that we can take those decisions, but we will do that in a sensible and serious way, which is about getting the asylum and the immigration systems back in control.”
Yvette Cooper

In a later answer she said that there’s a lot “we simply do not know about how events are going to play out in Syria.”

“Those who have taken over and who are involved in the initial overthrow of the Assad regime have said, initially, that they would pursue an approach which supported minorities, for example, within Syria, but of course we have seen further developments in recent days that raise questions about that and we’ve also just seen the huge instability with different organisations and groups operating across the country.”