After Sunday’s agreement between the EU and Turkey on the European refugee crisis, the Turkish authorities launched major operations and detained smugglers and 1,300 migrants and asylum seekers who wanted to enter the EU through Greece.
Advertisement
The refugees were put into buses and taken to a small, overcrowded detention center for foreigners awaiting deportation, the private Dogan news agency said.
The detained refugees were preparing to sail to Greece, Turkish authorities said. “The reasons for the slowdown in the number of arrivals have to do with fluctuation in climate conditions in the Aegean but also a crackdown on smuggling by Turkish authorities”, he said. “This is as illegal as it is unconscionable”, said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty’s Turkey researcher.
Oofficials also found a body of a person washed ashore who they believed to have been a migrant.
The EU has also pledged some 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) over the next year or two to improve the lives of the estimated 2.3 million Syrians now living in Turkey, so that they are less likely to board boats for nearby Greek islands and potentially proceeding on to Europe. Majority do not have the right to work legally, and the Turkish government has refused to grant them special work permits.
More than 720,000 migrants have arrived in Europe on Greek shores so far this year, the International Organization for Migration says, with most arriving from Turkey.
At least 30 people are missing after a boat carrying refugees sank off Turkey’s western coast on Tuesday, the Coast Guard said.
A total of 3,515 people have meanwhile perished in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, majority along the longer and more unsafe route from Libya to Italy.
The EU-Turkey deal is also unlikely to deter desperate refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe.
Advertisement
“If the European Union really was willing to do its share” in helping refugees, Ward said, “then it might work to up resettlement procedures and pre-screening”.
