Refugees increasingly coming into Greece by strategy of land routes

Athens, Greece – A rising sequence of refugees and migrants are reaching Greece by strategy of land routes from Turkey, with Greek authorities increasingly accused of conducting unlawful pushbacks on the land borders.

On Friday, the Greek police stated that 1,658 refugees and migrants were detained in March after crossing into Greece during the Evros River, which is situated on the Turkish border.

That number used to be more than five times better than the equal length in 2017, when handiest 262 other folks were detained on the country’s frontier with Turkey, the Greek every day Ekathimerini reported.

The unusual data comes factual two months after the Greek Council for Refugees published a account alleging that Greek authorities were increasingly conducting « systematic pushbacks » in the Evros online page.

Eva Cosse, a researcher at Human Rights Stumble on (HRW), stated pushbacks are regarded as a violation of every international refugee regulation and human rights regulation.

« We now like been monitoring the explain of pushbacks, » Cosse informed Al Jazeera.

« Pushbacks at sea stopped when the [Syriza] govt came to energy [in January 2015], but pushbacks on land like by no map really stopped, » she added. 

« Folk can also honest level-headed just like the opportunity to gaze asylum but pushing support other folks can effect them at possibility. »

Whereas Greece has been widely criticised for pushbacks and the declining humanitarian circumstances for tens of 1000’s of asylum seekers trapped in camps, migration minister Dimitris Vitsas has defended the governments potential to the crisis.

« One in every of our central priorities for the immediate future is the implementation of indispensable infrastructure projects in the islands, in cooperation with the native govt, aiming at enhancing every day existence of the inhabitants who’re in the entrance line at some level of the continuing refugee crisis, » he recently informed reporters.

Vitsas added that the Greek govt « will continue to vigorously defend the values of humanity and unity ».

‘Harmful’

Yonous Muhammadi, head of the Greek Forum of Refugees, also stated the sequence of parents crossing by strategy of Evros is « rising ».

« We like other folks coming 4 or five times, coming into Greece and then being pushed support to Turkey, » he informed Al Jazeera by telephone.

Describing the land route as « perilous », Muhammadi cited a string of reported deaths along the Evros River, where rising waters made the ride perilous. 

In the meantime, the sequence of refugees and migrants reaching Greek islands by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey used to be ostensibly on the rise again.

Constant with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), more than sixteen,595 other folks like reached European shores by making the perilous ride at some level of the Mediterranean Sea to this level this year.

At some level of that length, no longer lower than 501 other folks died or went missing, UNHCR neatly-known. 

Between January and March, one person died for every 14 crossing the Mediterranean, when put next to at least one loss of life for every 29 other folks that made that ride at some level of the first three months of 2017, the UN recently stated.

On March 17, a boat carrying refugees capsized whereas en path to Greece from Turkey. The Greek coastguard attributable to this fact learned sixteen bodies, amongst them children.