Turkey-Greece: thousands of migrants still stranded at the border

Text by: Anne Andlauer

Since the Turkish authorities announced the opening of their border with Greece in late February, thousands of migrants have been stranded on the Turkish side, at the gates of Europe. Faced with the intransigence of Athens, a party has turned back. But several thousand of them are still waiting in a "no man's land" strictly controlled by the Turkish authorities.

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From our correspondent in Istanbul,

For the past week, a tense status quo has reigned on the Greek-Turkish border. On the Turkish side, around 15,000 people are almost confined in tents near the Pazarkule border post, in a wooded buffer zone a few kilometers long, facing a wall of Greek barbed wire.

Regularly, migrants - many men, but also families with children - try to cross this last barrier before the European Union. They are systematically repelled with the help of tear gas, water cannons and plastic bullets. For the past few days, Greek police have even made use of a giant fan installed at the back of a vehicle, in order to better disperse the gas towards Turkish territory. Greece also installed this Friday, March 13, concrete blocks 1.50 meters high at its border post.

Confined, the migrants are first of all by the Turkish authorities, who have put in place strict controls around this makeshift camp. With the exception of patients with a prescription, migrants who want to leave the area - and then return to it - are only allowed to do so once a week, after reading their fingerprints. The Turkish authorities distribute a daily breakfast and hot meal to the thousands of people, most of whom have been waiting desperately for more than two weeks for Greece to open its border.

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• Turkey
• Greece
• Immigration
• International Migration
• Refugees

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