The European Office for Refugee Support has warned that the Corona crisis could lead to a further wave of asylum in the European Union in the event of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.
"The outbreak of the Corona virus in the Middle East and North Africa can cause food shortages, destabilize security and strengthen militant groups like the Islamic State," the office said, based in Malta.
He added that this may lead to an increase in asylum-related migration in the medium term, considering that the countries from which most of the asylum seekers in the European Union come from are exposed to a medium to high degree of risk that includes the spread of the epidemic and suffer a failure to adapt to the current crisis.
The warning comes from a new wave of migration to Europe similar to the one recorded in 2015, while the European Office for Refugee Support recorded the number of asylum applications registered in March dropping to half of what it was last February.
The European Union's Frontier Protection Agency (Frontex) reported that illegal crossings into the European Union were halved in March from last February.
The European Union had taken measures that included tightening maritime oversight in coordination with Greece and Turkey, to counter irregular migration towards its borders, to avoid a recurrence of the scenario of asylum for more than one million people in 2015.
According to United Nations data, about 123,000 people arrived in the European Union last year, compared to only 22,000 this year so far.
In the context, the Greek authorities said that irregular migrants participated in what they described as violence in a closed facility housing them at the border between Greece and Turkey in protest against the repeated postponement of consideration of the files of their asylum applications.
She added that minors residing in the facility participated in the protest, which resulted in no injuries, according to the same source.
On Monday, Britain received 52 irregular migrants stranded in Greece, and they traveled to London via Athens airport. This batch mainly includes immigrants from the most vulnerable groups, including minors.
A few days ago, a Portuguese Socialist MP said that his country would receive about 60 of the most vulnerable irregular migrants currently residing in camps in Greece.