Greek security forces have blocked an unusually large number of migrants from entering the EU illegally from Turkey via the border river Evros. Around 1,500 people tried to come to Greece on Thursday, Citizen Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos told the Greek news channel Skai on Saturday. In addition, the police arrested 60 suspected smugglers.
Athens rigorously blocks attempts by migrants to cross from Turkey to Greece by land or sea. Humanitarian organizations call this action illegal rejections (pushbacks).
However, government circles in Athens blame the government of Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling the tactic “push-forward”. Many migrants who managed to cross the border river told the Greek authorities that they were forced to cross to Greece by Turkish gendarmes.
Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis accused the Turkish authorities of this in the middle of the week. Migrants were forced to cross from the Turkish to the Greek side of the Evros border river. “The Turkish gendarmerie brought them to shore and forced them to come to Greece under threat of violence,” Mitarakis said on Greek television.
It was a group of 38 migrants who stayed for several days on a small island in the river. Numerous human rights organizations had called for their admission to the EU. Greek authorities said these people mistakenly believed they were in Greece when they reached a small island in the river and asked Greece for help.
Finally, the migrants managed to get to the Greek side of the river on Monday under unclear circumstances, as the government in Athens announced. Only then could they be helped.
The people said they came from Syria and Palestine. They feared that the Turkish authorities would send them back to their homeland if they were not accepted in Greece and thus in the EU, according to a report by the left-wing Greek news portal efsyn.gr.
