ATHENS: Greece said on Monday it had prevented around 600 migrants from crossing the Aegean Sea into its territorial waters from neighboring Turkey, in the largest attempted entry this year.
A spokesman for the Greek coast guard said five sail boats and four dinghies had set off from the Turkish coast early in the morning.
“Greek patrol vessels were able to quickly locate the vessels and inform the Turkish coast guard,” the spokesman told AFP.
A coast guard statement said its boats had used “visual and sound signals” to keep the asylum seekers out of Greek territorial waters.
All the vessels either headed back or were intercepted by the Turkish coast guard, he added.
“All the incidents occurred inside Turkish territorial waters” near the Greek islands of Chios and Samos, he said.
A migration ministry source said migration flows to the Greek islands in the first four months of 2022 were nearly 30 percent higher than in the same period last year.
Over 3,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Greece so far this year, including over 1,100 last month, according to data from the migration ministry.
There is also heightened migrant activity on Greece’s land border with Turkey because the water levels is low on the River Evros that divides the two countries, a border official said on Monday.
According to the latest ministry statistics, from April, there are more than 2,300 asylum seekers in camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Kos and Leros, all near Turkey.
New camps funded by the European Union were recently completed in Samos, Leros and Kos. Others on Lesbos and Chios are to follow.
Greece regularly blames Turkey for not taking sufficient action to curb people smugglers who send out migrants in unsafe boats and dinghies from its shores, in breach of a 2016 accord with the EU.
Greece is a member of the 27-nation bloc but Turkey is not.
Greece’s tough border controls have been dogged by accusations from rights groups that the Greek coast guard has been engaging in illegally forcing migrants to return to Turkey.
Athens has always denied that its security forces engage in illegal pushbacks.
In March, Greece’s national transparency authority said a four-month investigation found no evidence of such practices.
EU border agency Frontex has also repeatedly been accused by rights groups of illegally returning migrants across EU borders.
Frontex head Fabrice Leggeri resigned last month amid an investigation by the European anti-fraud office OLAF, reportedly into alleged mismanagement.
Greece says blocks hundreds of migrants from crossing Aegean
https://arab.news/8h75v
Greece says blocks hundreds of migrants from crossing Aegean
- Over 3,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Greece this year, including over 1,100 last month
- Greece regularly blames Turkey for not taking sufficient action to curb people smugglers
Philippines struggles to evacuate nationals from Middle East as attacks escalate across region
- Over 1,400 Philippine nationals in Middle East have requested for repatriation
- Filipinos are told to shelter in place, follow host government’s advice on situation
MANILA: The Philippines is in talks to evacuate its nationals from across the Middle East, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Tuesday, as an increasing number of Filipinos are seeking to leave amid growing destruction from US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s counterstrikes against US bases in Gulf countries.
More than 2.4 million Filipinos live and work in the Middle East, where tensions have been high since Saturday, after coordinated US-Israel strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials.
Tehran responded by targeting US military bases in Gulf countries, and violence has been widening across the region.
Evacuating Philippine nationals across the region is not yet possible, Marcos said, as countries closed their airspace, leading to airport shutdowns and the cancellation of thousands of flights throughout the Middle East.
“For now, we are depending on the advice that will be given to us by the local authorities in the place where our nationals — where our people — are,” Marcos told reporters in Manila on Tuesday.
The Philippine government has received requests for repatriation from more than 1,400 Filipino nationals in various Middle Eastern countries, including 872 from the UAE and almost 300 from Israel. Similar requests have also been made by Filipinos in Iran, Bahrain and Jordan.
“Right now, the most dangerous area for our people right now would be Israel as attacks there are continuous,” Marcos said.
“The problem now is that no planes are flying and airports are being hit. That’s why the situation is very fluid, our assessment is that it may be too dangerous to mount flights.
“Even if we could charter an aircraft, we cannot do anything because number one, the airports are closed. They are all no-fly zones.”
As the Philippine government prepares for multiple scenarios, officials have secured buses and other vehicles for possible evacuation by land.
Filipinos in “danger areas” have been moved to a safer place, Marcos said, citing the targeting of Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery by Iranian drones on Monday morning.
“But essentially our advice to them is shelter in place and follow the host government’s advice … For now it’s extremely difficult to enter or exit the region because the only aircraft flying are fighter jets and drones, and missiles.
“That’s why it is not a place that you would want to put in a civilian aircraft to take out our nationals,” he said.
“But again, as I said, the situation is changing by the minute, by the hour. We just have to be in very good and close contact with the local authorities.”
