A few hours after Turkey announced that it would allow asylum seekers to pass through Europe on Friday, Greek border guards prevented hundreds of migrants from crossing the border crossing at Kastanies, in the northeast of Greece, Greek police sources said.
According to journalists present on the spot, hundreds of migrants were stranded in the buffer zone between Greece and Turkey. The Greek chief of staff and the Minister of Citizen Protection went to Kastanies on Friday following a government decision to make border controls more "severe", the same source said.
"This figure is not out of the ordinary"
On Friday morning, a source within the Greek army said that around 300 migrants had been spotted on the Turkish side of the border, in the northeast region of Evros. "This figure is not out of the ordinary," however tempered the officer. The blockade comes after Greece decided on Friday morning to step up its patrols on the border with Turkey. A senior Turkish official said Friday morning that Turkey would no longer prevent migrants trying to get to Europe from crossing the border, shortly after the deaths of at least 33 Turkish soldiers in the northwestern region of Idleb from Syria) in air strikes attributed by Ankara to the Syrian regime, supported militarily by Russia.
In addition to the group of migrants at the land border, the Turkish news agency DHA has reported the arrival of other migrants on the coast of Ayvacik, in the province of Çanakkale (western Turkey), seeking to reach the Greek island of Lesbos by boat. Journalists have noted the arrival in Lesbos of a boat with around 50 asylum seekers on board from Turkey.
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