Four boats carrying 200 hundred migrants from African countries arrived on the island of Lesvos between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Friday, setting authorities and residents on alert. Does Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes his threats to ‘flood Europe with migrants’ come true?
According to Greek media, the migrants claimed that they were held in closed accommodation camps in north-west Turkey, camps that have been abandoned by the authorities in recent days.
Greek media report further that “there are thousands of migrants from north and central African countries in Turkey awaiting to cross to Greece and Europe” and that “nobody hinders them to get on board.”
They can cross from the Turkish coast to the Greek islands for 300-350 euros per person. According to Athens News Agency, the smugglers encourage them to do so claiming “all they need to do upon their arrival is to ask for asylum and then everything will be easy.”
There are currently 11,344 registered refugees – “trapped on the islands of the Eastern Aegean Sea as their asylum application has not been evaluated yet,” the Greek Police responsible to the North Aegean states. 5,772 on Lesvos, 3,515 on Chios, 2.057 on Samos, 598 on Leros and 1,530 on Kos.
There is also an unknown number of refugees and migrants staying outside the hot spots.
According to official data from Greece’s Migration Ministry 60 people arrived on Dec 6th, 121 on Dec 7th and 70 on Dec 8th.
The bulletin on Friday does not mention the arrival of the 200 migrants from Africa though.
The total number of registered refugees and migrants in Greece is 62,230.
200 refugees ..
Erdogan sent 200 refugees .. really!
For the gutless wonder that he is
Send a few thousand .. idiot .. 10.000 refugees would make the moment worth while .. send a serious message of intent to act.
What we need here is a bit of showmanship & imagination.
Dear God, where are all the courageous & colorful men of the world, the men with imagination & a sense of ambitious outcome.
You can be sure that if Erdogan wanted to send a message he would not do it with 200 migrants. This is just Greek stupidity, interpreting it that way. The Turks probably don’t feel like paying for a detention centre for Africans when they don’t recognise any refugees at all — only the Syrians have a slightly better status, but are atill not UN status refugees. So they offloaded 200 people onto Europe. That’s all it is.
May be they’ve arrested for being Gulenist the copper, who normally distributes the envelopes or the envelopes only had Lira inside.