In a few hours on Monday, some 600 migrants, spread over five sailboats and four canoes, were prevented from crossing the Aegean Sea and therefore from entering Greece from neighboring Turkey. According to the Greek coast guard which is at the origin of the information, it would be the most important attempt to enter the European country this year.
From our correspondent in Athens,
The increase in the number of people trying these days to reach Europe from Turkey is primarily due to a seasonal phenomenon. Every year, after the winter, there is an increase in crossings -or attempts to cross- by asylum seekers and migrants. This influx occurs when the good weather returns, which this year coincides with the month of April.
From this period, at sea, seaworthiness is generally better. And when the wind is blowing moderately, like right now, the crossing is therefore less dangerous. The land border between Turkey and Greece, which is located at the level of a river – the Evros – also presents less danger, since the watercourse that must be crossed is much shallower in this season.
Refoulement of asylum seekers
More than 3,000 asylum seekers, according to official Greek figures, have arrived in the country since the start of the year. Including around 1,000 in April. These figures, even if they are up from last year, seem relatively low compared to what they may have been, if only at the beginning of 2020, when several thousand people were arriving each month.
Another point of comparison, during what was called the “migration crisis” in 2015 and 2016, more than a million people arrived in Europe in a few months.
At present, these arrivals remain relatively limited, largely due to a active policy of refoulement of asylum seekers and migrants from Greece. However, this policy is almost never officially endorsed. With regard to the Geneva Convention in particular, it is indeed illegal to refuse to study an asylum application. This does not prevent these rejections from being extremely frequent today.
Pressures on Turkey
If the Greek coast guard decides to communicate on this attempt to cross 600 migrants in one day, it is also partly to put pressure on the Turkish authorities, accused of not doing enough to discourage departures and fight against smuggler networks.
If these departures were to increase sharply in the near future, a new scenario modeled on that of March 2020 cannot be ruled out. At the time, when the Turkish president threatened to open its borders, Athens had quite simply decreed a temporary suspension of the right of asylum.
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