Today, 142 refugees landed in Hanover: 35 families made up of 73 adults, 69 minors and one pair of siblings over the age of 18.

They will be transferred to the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia.

Germany has admitted a total of 1,433 refugees from Greece since April of this year, including 203 unaccompanied minors, a mother under the age of 18 travelling with her newborn baby, 225 children needing medical care along with 713 members of their immediate families, and families consisting of 291 persons recognised as beneficiaries of international protection.

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 had already found to be in need of protection. Today’s flight is the third to bring recognised beneficiaries of international protection from Greece to Germany. One of the arriving families is participating in the government and civil-society programme NesT – Neustart im Team (new start in a team).

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.

In addition, after the Moria fires, the Federal Government also decided to take in 150 of the 400 unaccompanied minors whom the Greek government had moved to mainland Greece. As of last week, all 150 of them had arrived in Germany.