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In Greece, Red Tape, Typos Add to Syrian Refugees' OrdealAccording to their Greek travel papers, the two young Syrian brothers are both 110 years old, born to different parents. The officials who processed them upon arrival were so overwhelmed by the crush of migrants entering Greece that they botched the paperwork.Escalating bureaucratic chaos is making life even harder for thousands of Syrian refugees already grappling with exhaustion, hunger and uncertainty — as they seek a safe haven from war back home.Every day, courts in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border with Macedonia, hand down token 30-day jail suspended sentences to dozens of Syrians caught with Greek transit papers that are faulty because of careless mistakes by harried police clerks. It slows down their journey, as well as Greece's creaking court system.Greece is at the forefront of Europe's escalating refugee crisis, and has received 160,000 people since January, four times the total for all of 2014. According to the United Nations, over 50,000 people reached the financially broken country last month alone.Unlike many other migrants, Syrians who can prove they are from the war-torn country qualify for asylum and are therefore granted temporary Greek transit papers.Conflicting instructions by Greek screening authorities add to the confusion. On the eastern island of Kos, Syrian refugees are told they must travel to Athens — and nowhere else — to get the additional documents. But elsewhere, there is no ban on avoiding the capital.A Vima FM radio journalist touched a raw nerve Monday, when he asked Migration Policy Minister Tassia Christodoulopoulou where the refugees go after being screened in Greece: "You find out where they go. ... I won't do your reporting for you," the minister snapped. "I told some of your colleagues that they 'disappear,' because there are some things I can't say in public."
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Topic: Red tape and typos (Read 3666 times)
