Refugees: strong tensions in Lesbos after the opening of the Turkish border

Audio 03:17

By: Joël Bronner Follow

In Greece, the situation remains very tense at the land border with Turkey, which has opened since February 29 its borders to the European Union. Several thousand asylum seekers and migrants are still stranded there in the buffer zone between the two countries, causing regular clashes with the Greek police. The Turkish president, on the other hand, slightly relaxed the pressure on the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea by giving again the order this weekend to his coastguards to prevent the departures by the sea.

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After the opening of the Turkish borders at the end of February, boats carrying more than 500 migrants docked in early March on the island of Lesvos, where in particular Moria, the largest camp in Europe, is located. Considering that these refugees are exploited by the regime of President Erdogan, Greece unilaterally decided to no longer take into account any request for asylum during the month of March. And to consider as outlaws all those who arrived "illegally", to the chagrin of human rights defenders.
The new arrivals were therefore arrested, and kept in the city's port and then on a military frigate, without ever being transported to the saturated Moria camp, which already has more than 20,000 asylum seekers. This frigate was still docked in Mytilene, the capital of the island of Lesbos, on Saturday March 7.
In theory, the Greek minister in charge of Migration announced in the middle of the week that all people illegally entering the territory would be transferred to the town of Serres, in the north of Greece, before being sent back to their country. It remains to be seen whether Athens will effectively send some of these migrants back to conflict zones.

The island of Lesbos still under tension

On Saturday evening, March 7, a new fire ravaged a community center for asylum seekers north of Mytilene, a week after a transit center of the High Commission for Refugees had also burned in the northeast. from the island. In addition, the Greek government has just announced the creation of two new camps, supposedly temporary, to accommodate nearly 1,000 people, one towards the city of Serres and the other in the region of Athens. The idea being to send migrants arriving there from March, with the aim of not clogging the camps on the islands even more, as in Lesbos, where the tension therefore remains very strong.

Deteriorated Greek-Turkish relations

Greece and Turkey, theoretically allied within NATO, accuse each other of all evils. Ankara accuses Greece in particular of causing the death of at least three people at the border using live ammunition from the accusations rejected by Athens which qualify them as " fake news ". For his part, Prime Minister Kyriákos Mitsotákis denounced on Friday March 6 on CNN what he described as Turkish " provocation " by saying that Ankara was assisting migrants from a logistical point of view to send them to the Greek border. Refugees and migrants whom Athens regards as “ geopolitical pawns ” used by Ankara to promote its own interests.

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• Greece
• Turkey
• Immigration
• International Migration
• Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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