Greece: Migrant children head to Portugal after appeal to EU

ATHENS, Greece – Greek authorities say 25 unaccompanied migrant children are travelling from Athens to Portugal, where they will be given shelter as part of a relocation program worked out among several European Union countries.

Nearly 75,000 migrants and refugees, about a third of them children, travelled from Turkey to Greece last year, most crossing to Greek islands, adding strain on the country’s reception system.

Most children arrived with adult family members, but some 3,800 were unaccompanied, according to the Greek government.

Greece has repeatedly appealed to other EU member nations to help ease the burden on the country’s strained migrant reception system by agreeing to take in relocated minors, Germany, Luxembourg, and Finland are among the countries that have agreed to help.

Officials from Greece’s Ministry of Migration Affairs and the International Organization for Migration, an organization affiliated with the United Nations, were at Athens International Airport Tuesday to see the children off to Portugal.