MEDITERRANEAN: Fewer arrivals but more deaths on migration routes ― Cyprus looks to migrant workers to replace repatriated Syrian refugees in construction sector ― Greek Council of State rules key provisions of NGO Registry law ‘unconstitutional’ ― Two…

• There has been a fall in the number of irregular arrivals to Europe in 2026 but more people on the move have died.
• The Cypriot government is looking to recruit foreign workers to fill labour shortages in the construction sector as it continues its programme of repatriating refugees to Syria.
• Greece’s supreme administrative court has ruled that key provisions of the controversial legal framework on the NGO Registry are unconstitutional.
• Two NGOs have accused Greek authorities of failing to take sufficient measures to put an end to pushbacks and to ensure that complaints about the illegal actions are investigated effectively by the criminal justice system.
• A number of doctors are under investigation on suspicion of having issued false medical certificates to prevent asylum applicants from being sent to pre-removal detention centres.
• An NGO has raised concerns about pushbacks in Malta’s search and rescue zone.

There has been a fall in the number of irregular arrivals to Europe in 2026 but more people on the move have died. According to new data published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 17 September, almost 60,000 people arrived in Europe in the first eight months of 2026 compared with over 98,000 during the same period in the previous year. However, despite this 39% decrease, at least 2,292 people have either died or gone missing so far in 2026 compared with 1,999 January-September 2025. The biggest fall in the number of arrivals was recorded on the Central Mediterranean migration route (55% decrease) which also saw an 18% increase in deaths and disappearances. Commenting on the data, IOM Director General Amy Pope said: “Deaths rising even as arrivals fall shows migrants are taking increasingly dangerous journeys. We need sustained international cooperation that saves lives, protects people on the move, combats trafficking and exploitation, and expands safe, regular pathways”.

The Cypriot government is looking to recruit foreign workers to fill labour shortages in the construction sector as it continues its programme of repatriating refugees to Syria. According to the Cyprus Mail, the Federation of the Building Contractors Associations of Cyprus (OSEOK) has reported that the government is in contact with its counterparts in Egypt and India with a view to securing the country’s construction workforce. “We must replenish the workforce as the domestic market either does not want to or cannot meet the demand,” OSEOK said. Commenting on the impact of the repatriation scheme for Syrians, contractor Konstantinos Karmiotis said: “I’ve lost so many men (…). Other colleagues say the same. We simply cannot find the men right now”. Separately, when Deputy Minister of Migration and International Protection Nicholas Ioannides was asked why asylum applicants in Cyprus “could not simply be given wider access to the labour market”, he acknowledged that it was a “reasonable question” but said that the framework needed to be restrictive in order to ensure that it “does not become attractive”.

Greece’s supreme administrative court has ruled that key provisions of the controversial legal framework on the NGO Registry are unconstitutional. On 17 September, the Greek Council of State published an announcement in which it ruled on several aspects of the ministerial decision governing the registry. It also referred several questions to the Court of Justice of the EU. The decision was welcomed by Greek NGOs, including several ECRE member organisations, who have long been campaigning for the “fair treatment of civil society” in the country. Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) described the ruling as “an important victory and vindication for the civil society organisations that have led persistent efforts to defend rights and the rule of law – as early as 2020 concerning the NGO Registry” while HIAS Greece called it a vindication of its longstanding position that “the institutional framework governing the Registry of NGOs in the migration sector was not a tool for ensuring transparency and improving the quality of services provided to migrant populations, but rather an arbitrary regime that granted the administration unlimited discretion to determine which organisations were permitted to operate in the migration sector and, in practice, a mechanism for controlling and silencing civil society”.

Two NGOs have accused Greek authorities of failing to take sufficient measures to put an end to pushbacks and to ensure that complaints about the illegal actions are investigated effectively by the criminal justice system. In a submission to the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers (CM), ECRE member organisations RSA and PRO ASYL have argued that insufficient action has been taken since the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece in January 2025 for the pushback of a Turkish national in May 2019. “Greece’s de facto policy of violent enforced disappearance of people seeking asylum and of failure to ensure meaningful investigation into those incidents has continued unabated despite the A.R.E. v. Greece judgment (…),” they argued. According to RSA, “Incidents of pushbacks continue to be systematically recorded without being properly investigated by the prosecution service, without perpetrators being punished, and without justice being served to the victims. No measures have been proposed by the government to strengthen the independence and effectiveness of criminal investigations”. The CM examined the case on 17 September and decided to resume the examination of this case at one of its human rights-focused meetings in 2027.

A number of doctors are under investigation on suspicion of having issued false medical certificates to prevent asylum applicants from being sent to pre-removal detention centres (CPRs). According to Italian media, the Ravenna Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating 23 medical professionals in several Italian cities in relation to “at least 34 migrant cases” and that one of the doctors is facing criminal charges of engaging in a “criminal conspiracy involving ideological forgery”. Three doctors were reportedly banned from practising for ten months earlier in the year and another five have reportedly been banned from handling deportation cases for ten months. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has claimed that the doctors who are under investigation would be “struck off the medical register and pay damages, out of their own pockets, for the failure to expel all the illegal migrants they allegedly protected” if they are “found guilty”. Other observers, however, have taken a more sympathetic view. Vanessa Guidi from the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans accused the Ravenna Public Prosecutor’s Office of “targeting female professionals as if they were part of a criminal organisation, when in fact they only conscientiously followed the code of ethics by preventing people from being locked up in CPRs, places that are harmful to physical and mental health, because they were responsible for their health”. Similarly, ECRE member organisation the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI) expressed its “solidarity with the doctors who, for carrying out their work scrupulously and refusing to accept hasty assessments for the sake of a quiet life, are today the victims of attacks and actual attempts at intimidation”.

An NGO has raised concerns about pushbacks in Malta’s search and rescue zone. Alarm Phone highlighted three incidents in early September in which Maltese authorities reportedly failed to respond to requests for assistance from boats in distress. In the first incident, which occurred on 1 September, Alarm Phone feared that a boat carrying 25 people may have been intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard after a merchant vessel which had located the boat was instructed by the Maltese Rescue Coordination Centre to wait “until further notice”. The Maltese news website Newsbook Malta put a series of questions about all three incidents to the Armed Forces of Malta but no response had been received by the time it published its article on 4 September.

Related articles

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.