Thousands of migrants stranded on the border between Turkey and Greece

Audio 7:30 p.m.

Thousands of migrants wait at the Greek-Turkish border at Pazarkule post in the Turkish district of Edirne on February 29, 2020. BULENT KILIC / AFP

By: Léa-Lisa Westerhoff Follow

While since Friday February 28, 2020, thousands of migrants flock to the Greek border, encouraged by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who announced the opening of its borders with Europe, and even chartered buses, tension is rising between Europe and Turkey.

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Ankara wants to put pressure on the European Union to obtain its support in the conflict in Syria, where more than 50 Turkish soldiers were killed last month.
It is therefore a political bargain that is played out on the Greek border. First victims: migrants. Since Sunday, March 1, 2020, at least 15,000 people according to the UN, have been stranded a few hundred meters from Greece, looking for a crossing point to Europe. Our correspondent Anne Andlauer went to the border post of Pazarkule, Turkish side.

On the Greek side, the Conservative government is determined not to let this influx of migrants and refugees pass. Frogmen, but also army and police forces were deployed to comb the river and the 212 km land border that separates Greece from Turkey. In the past two days, 1,200 people have managed to reach the Greek islands, but they are particularly badly received by exhausted inhabitants, as Joël Bronner explains to us in Lesbos.

Meanwhile, a little further north, there are thousands of other refugees stranded in Bosnia or Serbia. Blocked since 2016, the European Union has blocked the “Balkan route”, this access route to Europe via Hungary or Slovenia. Result in Serbia, many young adults seek to integrate and decide to learn Serbian. Our correspondent Louis Seiller visited one of the few NGOs that helps these refugees in Belgrade.

In France, the National Academy of Medicine is sounding the alarm! For this prestigious institution, the health of migrants has become a major French public health problem. In a report, the institution therefore asked the public authorities to do better and addressed eight recommendations to them. Juliette Rengeval .

This is a side effect of the Coronavirus epidemic in Europe: the shortage of antibacterial gel! In Italy, since the beginning of the epidemic in the north of the country, these bottles of disinfectants have become a real national obsession. Amuchina is the name of this much coveted liquid, and it's our word of the week. Our correspondent in Milan Franceline Beretti explains everything to us.

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  • Turkey
  • Immigration
  • Recep Tayyip Erdogan
  • Greece
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • France
  • Italy
  • coronavirus

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