One hundred and four refugees from Greece, including 17 children needing medical care and their immediate families as well as 27 unaccompanied minors, landed at the Hanover airport this morning. This brings the total of refugees admitted from Greece since April 2020 to 1,009.

The 17 families of the children needing medical care include 23 adults and 54 minors and will be relocated to the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The 27 unaccompanied minors will be relocated to Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia.

After fires destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, the Federal Government decided to take in a total of 1,553 persons in family groups from the Greek islands whom the Greek government has already found to be in need of protection.

Following agreement within the Federal Government and a decision by the coalition committee at its meeting on 8 March 2020, Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer decided to admit 243 children needing medical care and their immediate families from refugee camps in Greece, as part of a European aid effort in which 11 EU member states (Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia) as well as Norway and Serbia are taking part.

After the Moria fires, the Federal Government also decided to take in some of the 400 unaccompanied minors whom the Greek government had moved to mainland Greece. Germany will accept 150 of these unaccompanied minors.

The refugees are being relocated to the various federal states based on a plan developed by the Federal Government together with the governments of all 16 federal states. This plan takes into account criteria such as family ties and specific medical needs.