Tag Archives: Greece

Thousands of migrants trapped in Greece as neighbors tighten restrictions

ATHENS (Reuters) – Thousands of migrants were stranded in northern Greece on Monday after neighboring Macedonia demanded additional identification from people seeking to cross the border and head to Western Europe, witnesses said.

European leaders are concerned that migrants passing through austerity-hit Greece to more prosperous countries could end up stranded if Greece’s northern neighbors tighten border controls.

Greek officials say the flow of people across the border slowed after Macedonia demanded additional identification from people seeking passage.

About 5,000 people massed at two locations in northern Greece, close to the border with Macedonia, while aid groups urged another 4,000, who arrived on the Greek mainland from outlying islands, not to head to north for fear of creating a bottleneck.

“Our biggest fear is that the 4,000 migrants who are in Athens head up here and the place will become overcrowded,” said Antonis Rigas, a coordinator of the medical relief charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

Balkan states straddling the migrant route to western and northern Europe have begun denying passage to individuals not coming from the conflict regions of Syria and Iraq.

One migrant in his mid-30s, who said he was from the Syrian town of Aleppo, said Macedonian police did not let him cross the border because he did not have a passport.

“I lost everything in the war, I have no documents,” he said, declining to give his name. He said he had obtained Greek registration papers at the island of Lesbos.

Macedonia has erected a metal fence topped with razor wire at the main crossing point for migrants along its southern border with Greece.

Greek migration minister Yannis Mouzalas criticized his neighbors for shirking their responsibilities amid the crisis.

“Not only have Visegrad countries not taken in one refugee, they didn’t even send a blanket or a tent,” he told the TV channel of Greece’s parliament, referring to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.

They had not sent a ‘single policeman’ to reinforce the EU border agency Frontex either, he said.

Austria has invited Balkan states to a meeting on migration in Vienna on Feb. 24, a day before EU interior ministers are due to meet on the migrant crisis.

Vienna has angered other EU members by imposing a cap on asylum claims, limiting the number of migrants permitted into its territory to 3,200 per day, and introducing a daily cap of 80 asylum claims.

Its interior minister has said Austria could impose even stricter controls, a move that could trigger other countries north of Greece to do the same.

(Additional reporting by Fedja Grulovic; writing by Michele Kambas; editing by Katharine Houreld)

Greeks at frontline of migrant crisis angry at Europe’s criticism

ABOARD THE AGIOS EFSTRATIOS, Aegean Sea (Reuters) – Greek Captain Argyris Frangoulis lifts his binoculars and with eyes fixed on the Aegean Sea horizon, steers his patrol boat out near the Turkish border to a dinghy full of stranded refugees.

He zeroes in on the target and gasps – “My God!” – another grey rubber motor boat packed with about four times as many people as it can hold, many of them young children and babies.

“Everybody safe, OK?” he yells at the passengers, mainly Syrians and Afghans, approaching the coast guard vessel bewildered and in near-silence. “Stay calm and do not panic!”

About 50 people are pulled aboard one by one, smiling but too exhausted to speak. By the time they stagger wearily to the boat’s rear, a dinghy is spotted in the distance. Then another, and another, crammed almost entirely with women and children.

By midday, the Agios Efstratios, a gunboat with 29-member crew who work in shifts, had plucked more than 600 people from sea and ferried them to the port of Lesbos, the island on the frontline of Europe’s migration crisis.

From Greece’s islands, the refugees and migrants travel to the mainland and then to the northern border with non-European Union member Macedonia. Most of them are trying to reach Germany.

The influx has led some in the EU to accuse Greece of failing to make use of available EU funds and personnel to ensure people arriving in the Schengen zone of open border travel are documented. Some EU members have suggested Greece should be suspended from Schengen if it does not improve.

But the criticism and threats have been met with anger in Greece. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday said the EU was “confused and bewildered” by the migrant crisis and said the bloc should take responsibility like Greece has done, despite being crash-strapped.

Most Greeks, including the coast guard, the army, the police were “setting an example of humanity to the world,” Tsipras said.

For those at the frontline, foreign criticism is even more painful.

“We’re giving 150 percent,” said Lieutenant Commander Antonis Sofiadelis, head of coast guard operations on Lesbos.

Once a dinghy enters Greek territorial waters, the coast guard is obliged to rescue it and transport its passengers to the port.

“The sea is not like land. You’re dealing with a boat with 60 people in constant danger. It could sink, they could go overboard,” he said.

RELIEF AFTER EVERY RESCUE

More than a million people, many fleeing war-ravaged countries and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, reached Europe in the past year, most of them arriving in Greece.

For the crews plying a 250-km-long coastline between Lesbos and Turkey, the numbers attempting the crossing are simply too big to handle. It is but a fraction of a coastline thousands of kilometers long between Greece and Turkish shores.

“The flow is unreal,” Sofiadelis said.

Lesbos has long been a stopover for refugees. Locals recall when people fleeing the Iraqi-Kurdish civil war in the mid-1990s swam across from Turkey.

Yet those numbers do not compare to what has become Europe’s biggest migration crisis since World War Two and which has continued unabated despite the winter making the Aegean Sea even more treacherous.

After days of gale force winds and freezing temperatures, more than 2,400 people arrived on Greece’s outlying islands on Monday, nearly double the daily average for February, according to United Nations data.

Sofiadelis, the Lesbos commander, said controls should be stepped up on the Turkish side, while Europe should provide assistance with more boats, more staff and better monitoring systems such as radars and night-vision cameras.

Greek boats, assisted by EU border control agency Frontex, already scan the waters night and day.

By late morning on Monday, Captain Frangoulis and his crew – including a seafaring dog picked up at a port years ago – have been at sea for more than 24 hours.

Each time his crew spot a boat that could be carrying migrants “our stomach is tied up in knots,” Frangoulis said. “There’s this fear that everything must go well, everyone boards safely, no child falls in the sea, no one’s injured.”

Though fewer than 10 nautical miles separate Lesbos from Turkish shores, hundreds of people have drowned trying to make it across.

Patrol boats, as well as local fishermen, have often fished out corpses from the many shipwrecks of the past months, the bodies blackened and bruised from days at sea.

After every rescue operation, a sense of relief fills the crews. Once the Agios Efstratios docked at the Lesbos harbor on Monday, Frangoulis’ beaming crew helped passengers disembark, holding up crying babies in their arms.

“There’s no room for sentimentalism. We execute commands,” Frangoulis said of the rescue operations.

“Beyond commands, we’re human. We’ll lose heart, we’ll cry, we’ll feel sad if something doesn’t go well. There isn’t a person who won’t be moved by this,” he said.

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

EU warns Greece to fix border ‘neglect’

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The EU executive concluded on Wednesday that Greece could face more border controls with other states of the free-travel Schengen zone in May if it does not fix “serious deficiencies” in its management of the area’s external frontier.

EU countries have been increasingly critical of Athens’ handling of the continent’s worst migration crisis since World War Two, with more than a million migrants reaching Europe last year, mainly through Greece.

“If the necessary action is not being taken and deficiencies persist, there is a possibility to … allow member states to temporarily close their borders,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a news briefing.

He was speaking after the executive accepted a report saying cash-strapped Athens had “seriously neglected” its obligations to fellow Schengen states.

The use of that phrase could pave the way for EU governments to exercise the option of reinstalling controls on their national borders for up to two years once short-term measures currently in place expire in May.

Several EU member states have instituted emergency controls on their borders and warned they may effectively suspend Athens from the passport-free zone. Most of the irregular migrants arriving in the EU have come from Turkey via Greece and trekked northward to Germany.

Dombrovskis said Greece was not identifying or registering people arriving effectively, not uploading fingerprinting data to relevant bases systematically, and not checking travel documents properly and against key databases.

EU border agency Frontex says its latest mission to the Greek island of Lesbos in January showed improvements in registration procedures.

But EU officials carried out an assessment in Greece in November that lead to Wednesday’s conclusion that there were “serious deficiencies” in Greek frontier control.

SEALING GREECE OFF

The step of imposing border controls, under the as yet unused Article 26 of the Schengen code, can be taken for up to six months and can be renewed up to three times for a total of two years.

Dombrovskis said the Commission was intent on preserving Schengen, one of the EU’s key achievements, and said Greece had improved its border controls since November – but not enough.

The next step in the process would be for Schengen member states – 26 countries, most of which are also in the EU – to confirm the Commission’s conclusions in a majority vote. The executive would then recommend remedial measures and assess by May whether Athens had complied.

Greece has no land borders with the rest of the Schengen zone, so installing new frontier checks would affect only air and sea ports.

Diplomats and officials described the move to penalize tourism-dependent Greece as a way to raise pressure on Athens, which is already mired in a financial crisis, to better implement EU measures intended to identify and register all those arriving from Turkey.

The EU is also looking into using Frontex more to help guard the border between Greece and Macedonia, which is not a member of the EU or Schengen. Some Frontex personnel are already at Greece’s northern border, but the agency’s mandate does not allow for interventions in third countries.

Some diplomats said countries could send more police or border guards to Macedonia on the basis of bilateral agreements.

Frontex has a precedent from 2006, when it ran a naval mission in territorial waters off Senegal and Mauritania to prevent African migrants reaching Spain’s Canary Islands. That operation was carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements between Spain, Dakar and Nouakchott.

“Details would need to be worked out but there seems to be very little opposition to this idea, apart, of course, from Greece,” said one EU diplomat involved.

Athens says the influx is impossible to control and its migration minister, Yannis Mouzalas, warned this week that sealing his country off from Schengen would create a humanitarian crisis with thousands of people trapped in Greece.

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

At least 43 migrants drown as boats capsize off Greek islands

ATHENS (Reuters) – At least 43 people, including 17 children, drowned when their boats capsized off two Greek islands near the Turkish coast on Friday, coastguards said, marking one of the deadliest days for migrants risking the perilous route to Europe from Turkey.

According to survivors’ testimonies, dozens were on board a wooden sailboat which went down off Kalolimnos, a small island in the Aegean Sea close to Turkey’s coast, one coastguard official said.

Twenty six people were rescued and at least 35 migrants drowned in one of the worst incidents in months, the official said. It was not clear why the vessel capsized, but witnesses said strong winds were blowing at the time.

Fishing vessels assisted the search and rescue operation which lasted hours.

“They weren’t wearing life jackets, I don’t understand. They couldn’t swim,” Michalis, a local fisherman, told Reuters.

He rescued three migrants but one of them, a 50-year old man, later died in his small fishing boat. “The hospital is now full of dead people.”

Survivors said that more people were missing, he said. “There must have been a lot of people on board. It was one of those closed yachts with a small hatch. You can imagine what happened if it had a lot of people on board,” the fisherman said.

In the sinking at Farmakonisi, another small island also close to the Turkish coast, six children and two women drowned when their wooden boat crashed on rocks shortly after midnight. Another 40 migrants on the vessel managed to swim to the shore.

“Once again, last night ruthless human smugglers at the Turkish coast crammed dozens of refugees and migrants in risky and unseaworthy vessels and led innocent people, even young children to perish,” the shipping ministry said in a statement.

The International Organization for Migration said the deaths of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean already make this “the deadliest January on record”.

The latest incidents bring the number of people killed on the eastern Mediterranean route in the past year to at least 900, said IOM spokesman Joel Millman in Geneva.

The total number of arrivals in Europe by sea rose to about 37,000 in January, more than six times the combined figures for the same month in 2014 and 2015, usually a slow month due to the bad weather.

Fleeing war, thousands of mainly Syrian refugees have braved rough seas this year to make the short, but precarious, journey from Turkey to Greece’s islands, from which most continue to mainland Greece and northward into wealthier western Europe.

Winter conditions make the journey even more dangerous.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou, George Georgiopoulos and Theodora Arvanitidou in Athens and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Greek Parliament Votes to Recognize Palestine as a State

Greece’s parliament is urging the country’s government to recognize Palestine as a state.

The move came as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attended Tuesday’s session, according to a news release. While parliament approved a resolution asking Greece’s government “to speed up all necessary procedures towards the recognition of the State of Palestine,” the government still has to take that formal step. There’s no indication when or if that action will actually occur.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who also attended the session, called the gesture “a very important and historical step” in a news release. Addressing parliament, Abbas expressed gratitude for the vote, which he said sent “a message of support and solidarity” to Palestinians.

The resolution was approved one day after Abbas told reporters in Athens that Palestine would begin to issue “State of Palestine” passports before the end of 2016.

The Greek resolution notes that the country “has steadily supported the two-state solution,” which favors creating a Palestinian state separate from Israel. Such a state would be based on 1967 borders and have East Jerusalem as its capital, according to the adopted resolution.

Al-Jazeera reported that multiple other European parliaments have passed similar resolutions.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, condemned the action, telling French news agency AFP that Abbas was continuing chase “recognition which has no meaning in practice.”

“Instead of (Abbas) ceasing to incite and fund terror, he is following a flawed path that will lead him nowhere,” AFP quoted the deputy foreign minister as saying.

In September, the State of Palestine flag was raised at United Nations headquarters in New York. Israel dismissed that action as a photo opportunity.

Preliminary 6.1-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Greek Island; At Least 1 Dead

A strong earthquake with at least a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 struck the western Greek island of Lefkada on Tuesday, and an hour later, a 5.2-magnitude aftershock struck the area.

Different organizations are reporting different magnitude readings at this time. The Athens Geodynamic Institute told the Associated Press that the preliminary magnitude was 6.1 and that the quake struck at 9:10 a.m. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the preliminary magnitude was 6.5. Different agencies will usually have different readings hours and days after the quake, according to the Associated Press. Despite the lack of an official magnitude, residents in neighboring islands and even in Athens – 186 miles east of the island – felt the tremors.

Local officials stated that there has been at least one death. An elderly woman was killed after her house collapsed under a falling rock. Local residents told Reuters that another elderly woman was killed in a stable in a mountain village, but Greek police have not confirmed the second death. However, other news sources including the Washington Post have confirmed the second death.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Greek officials are having a hard time assessing the damage because of landslides that are blocking roads. The Vassiliki harbor is also partially submerged due to the quake.

Other damages include several badly damaged houses and government buildings. Schools closed down in order for authorities to assess the safety of the buildings.

Earthquakes are common in Greece according to multiple news agencies. The Ionian Sea located to the west of Greece, is one of most seismically active areas of the world.

EU Leaders Vow to Increase Capacity at Migrant Summit

European Union (EU) leaders gathered in Brussels to handle the European refugee crisis, resulting in an additional 100,000 refugees to be welcomed into Greece and the western Balkans.

According to BBC News, the new agreement between the 11 EU countries and the three non-EU states will have Greece opening up its country to an additional 30,000 refugees by the end of the year. Just within the last week, Greece has seen 9,000 refugees a day enter its borders, which is the highest rate so far in 2015. The Associated Press reported that the United Nations will be providing capacity for 20,000 more.

The meeting was held to find a plan of action before the winter months set in, leaving thousands of refugees in camps and out in the open in soon-to-be freezing temperatures.

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker conducted an interview with German newspaper Bild am Sonntag saying: “Every day counts…otherwise we will soon see families in cold rivers in the Balkans perish miserably.

“The challenge now is to slow down the flow of migration and to bring our external borders under control. We must also make it clear that people who arrive at our borders who are not looking for international protection have no right to enter the EU,” he added.

“As winter looms, the sight of thousands of refugees sleeping rough as they make their way through Europe represents a damning indictment of the European Union’s failure to offer a forward thinking and coordinated response to the refugee crisis,” John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International director of Europe and Central Asia, told USA Today.

“The EU has the mechanisms and, collectively, the money to ensure adequate reception conditions to all arriving refugees and migrants; these must be used to end the march of misery being endured by hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants,” he added.

The summit was conducted with the current world leaders of Austria, Croatia, Macedonia, Germany, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, and Slovenia present.

Due to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, and Afghanistan, over 680,000 refugees have escaped the areas and came to Europe by sea this year, according to USA Today.

Greece Must Implement Terms of EU Bailout Quickly

Newly re-elected, left wing Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras announced that Greece must “quickly implement” the terms of the EU bailout agreed upon in July. During  his first Cabinet meeting, Tsipras stressed that his aim is to have steered the country out of its crisis by 2019 when his four-year mandate ends.

“We are aware of the difficult points of the deal… we know how to find the right antidote where there are side effects,” Tsipras said today. “This mandate is translated into one word; work.”

A review by the lenders will be conducted in late October to determine if the reform program has been implemented.   

Tsipras highlighted another crisis for his country, saying that  the government’s task was made into an even greater challenge by Europe’s migrant flows.

Greece has become the main point of entry into Europe for those fleeing war and poverty in the Syria and war torn Africa, most of whom then head by land to richer EU countries further north.

Russia Admits Military Experts in Syria

The Russian government stopped denying they have troops in Syria.

The statement comes one day after the United States asked nations like Bulgaria and Greece to close their airspace to Russian military transports. Bulgaria agreed to the U.S. request but Greece did not publicly respond to the request.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed “advisors” are assisting with deliveries of Russian arms.  The Russian government is claiming the mission of the forces is just to assist the Syrian army in fighting militants.

However, U.S. officials say that Russian transports are also arriving with passenger flights that contain Russian troops putting together a forward base in Syria.

“Any effort to bolster the Assad regime would potentially be destabilizing,” the U.S. State Department said.

Russia has long considered Syrian President Bashir al-Assad a close ally.

Hungary Sending Troops to Stop Migrants at Border

Hungarian officials are rushing military troops to their border to try and stop a massive wave of migrants attempting to escape the violence of the Middle East and Asia.

Hungarian officials said that a record 2,533 migrants were arrested attempting to enter the country on Tuesday.  Most of them were from Syria, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Officials are calling the situation the worst migrant crisis since the second World War and Hungary is attempting to quickly build a 110 mile border fence with razor wire to stop the illegal immigration.

“Hungary’s government and national security cabinet … has discussed the question of how the army could be used to help protect Hungary’s border and the EU’s border,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told reporters.

The move by Hungary is coming under criticism from Germany and France.  The German and French governments are working to put together a comprehensive plan for all nations across Europe to accept migrants, but Hungary’s actions are countering the proposed actions.

Other nations are also overwhelmed.  Greece, which is in the midst of financial crisis unlike any other in the nation’s history, has been burdened with 50,000 migrants in just the month of July.