Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a new scheme to protect unaccompanied migrant minors reaching the country, two days after condemning other EU states for their lack of solidarity.
The prime minister’s office will take charge of the new “No Child Alone” programme, which he said was designed to protect unaccompanied children from “exploitation and criminality”.
Referring to the need to protect unaccompanied child migrants arriving in Greece, he said in a statement: “There is a wound of the migrant crisis that we can heal immediately by ourselves.
“Our civilisation, our humanity, our sensitivity and tradition dictates that we do so.”
Mitsotakis pledged to quickly settle 4,000 children living on Greece’s Aegean islands in “miserable conditions” to accommodation where, he said, “they will live and be fed as dictated by their tender age”.
He added that the structures in the mainland will have small groups, teachers, doctors and psychologists.
For the purpose of the “No Child Alone” program, Mitsotakis said that they “would work with the European Union and international organizations, with institutions, non-governmental organizations and stakeholders interested on the issue.
He underline that he is sending “a stern warning: Those criminals who dare to torture and traffic children should know that the state will chase them relentlessly. And he will punish them without pity by saving the innocent creatures from their hands.”
PS Odd is that there are already programs for unaccompanied minors supported y the EU and NGOs. It’s not some kind of PR, is it?
