Greek asylum policy creating a refugee hunger crisis: Aid groups

Al Jazeera :
Restrictive government decisions have cast thousands of refugees out of protective support services and are creating a hunger crisis, aid groups say.
Just under 18,000 refugees live in camps on the Greek mainland. More than half – 60 percent according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations body – have no access to food services or cash handouts. Almost half are children.
That is because last September, the government restricted services to those who are in the process of applying for asylum. Most camp residents do not fit that description.
Some have been granted asylum, and they are entitled to benefits for only 30 days after that decision.
Benefits used to be extended for six months, to support people navigating employment prospects and premises. The government cut that period down in March last year.
Asadullah Sadighi and his 16-year-old daughter, Afghans living in Ritsona camp, a former air force radar base 90km north of Athens, are in this category. He has asked relatives back home to send cash.
Those who have been rejected and have exhausted the appeals process have been told to leave the country – though authorities do not forcibly remove them from camp
Sadighi told Al Jazeera: “When they give us asylum they don’t give us food or cash any more, and leave us to fend for ourselves. They take away our protection completely. He has asked relatives back home to send cash.
Those who have been rejected and have exhausted the appeals process have been told to leave the country – though authorities do not forcibly remove them from camp premises, because they cannot deport them back to Turkey.
In theory, a 2016 European Union-Turkey deal obliges both parties to readmit rejected asylum applicants, but Turkey stopped doing so in March last year.
And there is a third category of people who cannot even apply for asylum, because they are deemed inadmissible.