Greece threatens immgrants

“I had two children in Thessaloniki, and my problem is the issue of my children’s birthplace. They want it ‘Thessaloniki’ written on my Albanian passport, not ‘Selanik’”, declared Tatiana Vjera, an emigrant.

“I’ve been living in Thessaloniki for 22 years and, and I have two children who were born here. They gave me a 24-hour deadline to leave Greece, and then they gave me another three-month deadline since my children were at school, but with the condition to appear at the police as if I was a criminal”, declared Ilia Salla, an immigrant.

“I have a problem with my children. Both of them were born in Thessaloniki. My wife has 24 hours to leave Greece only because of the names of the birthplaces. I am asking the Albanian authorities for help, because they are moving us away of our children”, declared Vasil Karroqi, an Albanian emigrant.

Gathered in some of the Thessaloniki Prefecture rooms, with the initiative of some political representatives in emigration, dozens of Albanians have underlined that this problem would destroy their efforts in two decades in Greece. The Greek authorities have been denying entrance to hundreds of Albanian children born in Greece, because their Greek birthplaces on their Albanian passports are written in Albanian and not in the international language. Now they are not even renewing their documents for staying in Greece.

Emigrants say that despite promises, they don’t see concrete steps for this problem, while the Greek state has given very short deadlines.

They ask for official Tirana to act in the same way as with Belgium, to sign an agreement for recognizing the years of work experience in Albania and in Greece for the immigrants.

The immigrants signed the petition that was sent to the Albanian Foreign Ministry and to the Prime Minister, asking an acceleration of the procedures.

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