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GreekReporter.comGreeceNearly 50,000 Migrants and Refugees Reach Greek Islands in 5 Days

Nearly 50,000 Migrants and Refugees Reach Greek Islands in 5 Days

refugees-lesvosThe International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on Friday that in the past five days arrivals in Greece have reached unprecedented levels.
“Despite deteriorating weather conditions, approximately 48,000 refugees and migrants crossed from Turkey to the Greek islands – or about 9,600  migrants and refugees in each of the past five days. The math is as follows: 9,113 new arrivals entered October 17; 9,237 on October 18; 8,617 on October 19; 10,994 on October 20 and 10,024 on October 21,” the IOM said.
Until Wednesday October 20, 537,460 migrants and refugees had been registered by Greek authorities since the beginning of the year.
The organization notes that this massive influx left Greek authorities unprepared. The island of Lesvos, which has seen the a greater number of arrivals than any other Greek island throughout the year, had 27,276 new registrations in this five-day period. The island of Chios also had an exponential increase in daily arrivals which amounted to approximately 2,000 in comparison to the 300 during the summer period, the IOM notes. Nineteen people have lost their lives in the Aegean sea during this five-day period.
This peak in weekly arrivals precedes a summit to be held on Sunday that will include leaders of European countries that are engulfed in the refugee crisis, including Greece and Germany as well as non-European Union members FYROM and Serbia.
New Information Database Aims to Assist New Arrivals
In the midst of the overwhelming number of arrivals in Europe, a new online database, the Crisis Info Hub, has been set up to assist migrants and refugees.
Lesvos is among the locations in which the database is active. The site includes information on the registration process, accommodation options, transportation means on the island, ticket information on ferry rides from Lesvos to Athens and currency information among others directions.
The database works through the contribution of information via Google Docs by online users and is thus updated depending on the information that is provided.
“Crisis Info Hub provides a templatized Google Doc, customizable to allow organizations and individuals to disseminate crisis-relevant information in a low-bandwidth way,” the Crisis Info Hub notes.
A mobile version is also available.
 

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