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Some 1,900 refugees won't be sent back to Greece: minister

Thursday 14 October 2010

The Netherlands will not send some 1,900 asylum seekers back to Greece, outgoing justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin told MPs on Wednesday.

The 1,900 were due to be sent back to Greece because it was the first place in Europe they came to. Under EU rules, applications must be made in the country they arrived in.

But criticism of Greece’s attitude to asylum seekers and the European court of human rights’ statement that it would rather not see handovers to Greece has prompted the minister to halt the deportations, the Volkskrant states.

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