Zakariya - Trapped in a legal loop

Zakariya’s case is a Kafkaesque one that has left his family in a situation of extreme vulnerability. Zakariya and his two children were granted refugee status in Belgium in 2015. In 2017, the family was the victim of a pushback while on holiday in Greece. Arrived in Turkey and deprived of all their documents, they have been disregarded by the Belgian consulate for two years. After resigning to smuggle themselves back to Greece in 2019, they found themselves in a new legal nightmare: Belgium refused to grant them a visa because they had lost their address in Belgium, and the Greek asylum service refused them access to the asylum procedure because they were already recognised refugees in Belgium. While living in a refugee camp, the family has no access to proper education or health care.