Eleven unaccompanied refugee children departed from Athens International Airport on Tuesday to be relocated in Portugal, said the Migration & Asylum Ministry.
The children were accompanied to the airport by the ministry's Special Secretary for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors, Heracles Moskof. In a statement, Moskof noted that the "innovative initiative of Greece and the member states of the European Union, which has been implemented in the last two years through the Voluntary Resettlement Program, highlights the social and child-focused nature of the Special Secretariat's interventions, and is a practical expression of solidarity with our country."
Chief of the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) Greece Mission, Gianluca Rocco, conveyed his best wishes to the children for a fresh start to a new life in Portugal.
"Voluntary resettlement is proving to be an excellent solidarity mechanism, and a good example of burden-sharing between EU countries," Rocco noted in a statement.
Besides EU countries and the IOM Greece, the program is also supported by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees - Greece, the EU Agency for Asylum and the NGO METAdrasi.