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Article: Muslims fleeing strife find Greece; Numbers soar in Athens; laws hit equal status.(WORLD)(BRIEFING: EUROPE)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- July 16, 2006
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Byline: Ioannis Gatsiounis, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
ATHENS - Greece would appear the last possible destination for Muslim immigrants it is 99 percent Christian Orthodox; its 11 percent unemployment rate ranks near the highest among European Union countries and it is one of the less developed EU member states.
However, about 200,000 Muslims or a quarter of all immigrants in Greece now live in the capital, Athens, alone, up from 5,000 in the early 1990s.
The first wave came mostly from neighboring countries such as Albania, following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The second arrived after 1995 and included Muslims from farther abroad the ...