ATHENS, Dec 04, 2008 (AFP) - Fifteen immigrants from Morocco and Syria whose residency applications were rejected by Greece are in danger of serious health damage from a 24-day hunger strike, rights supporters said on Thursday.
The fourteen Moroccans and one Syrian began the protest in the Cretan port of Hania on November 11 after Greece rejected their residency applications on a technicality, a local citizens' support group told a news conference.
"The doctors monitoring the migrants' health say that they will suffer permanent damage to vital organs in two or three days," Katia Symeonidou from the Hania support initiative said.
"We call on the government to act and prevent them from dying, because they are prepared to take this to the end," she told reporters.
The migrants had submitted residency applications during a 2005 legalisation drive declared by the Greek state but were denied, a fate shared by thousands of other migrants and asylum seekers here.
"The legalisation law requires documents which newly-arrived migrants cannot possibly possess such as tax registration numbers," said Vassilis Papadopoulos, a lawyer specialising in migrant and asylum seeker rights.
Between 170,000 and 250,000 unregistered migrants are believed to live in Greece according to state statistics, Papadopoulos said.
Rights groups will hold two demonstrations in support of the migrants on Friday and on December 18, which is International Migrants' Day.
Greece lies on the crossroads of a major route to Europe used to smuggle clandestine immigrants from Asia and Africa.
The number of undocumented migrants detained by Greek police grew from 40,000 in 2005 to 112,000 in 2007, and about 70,000 have been detained in the first seven months of this year, according to the UN refugee agency.
Rights groups note that many of these migrants are legitimate asylum seekers who are never given the chance to file applications in Greece because of inadequate resources at their point of entry.
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