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The number of illegal entries from Turkey is greatly decreasing
| Reading time: 3 minutes
Many immigrants want to find a better future in Europe, but their journey often ends in Greek refugee camps.
What: REUTERS
According to the EU, the number of illegal entries from Turkey is drastically decreasing. Ankara’s announcements that tens of thousands of people could cross the EU border turned out to be empty threats. In terms of the number of asylum applications, Germany is no longer the European leader.
men the first nine months of this year, significantly fewer illegal immigrants came to Europe from Turkey. For this, WELT has a confidential “status report” from the EU Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS). It says: “The number of arrivals from Turkey to the EU in 2020 is 14,579. These include 11,921 arrivals from Turkey to Greece, 2,334 from Italy, 35 from Bulgaria and 289 arrivals by ship to (the Republic of) Cyprus ”.
The report analyzes the current situation of migration in the European Union. According to the document, the decrease in illegal entries from Turkey compared to the same period last year (48,554) is 70 percent, the lowest value since the start of the migration crisis in 2015. The figures refer to the period from January to September of the current year.
In March 2016, the EU concluded a refugee agreement with Turkey at the initiative of Chancellor Angela Merkel. In it, Ankara pledges to protect its borders from illegal migration to Europe. However, in February and March of this year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had tens of thousands of migrants brought to the Turkish-Greek border to pressure Europeans. There were tumultuous scenes there, water cannons and tear gas were used.
Ankara’s empty threats
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in early March that his country had allowed more than 75,000 people to cross the border into the EU. Turns out these were just empty threats. In truth, very few people came to Europe at that time. This was ensured above all through the deployment of the Greek security forces, which were supported by the EU’s border protection agency Frontex. Together they reinforced the EU’s external border, including on the water and through surveillance from the air, and prevented migrants from crossing illegally.
Meanwhile, the situation in Greece remains tense. According to the document, 21,410 people who had fled Turkey previously were on the Greek islands earlier this month. According to the EU-Turkey Agreement, Ankara must accept migrants if they have no chance of asylum in the EU. However, court proceedings sometimes drag on for years. Currently, there are about 16,300 places available in the shelters on the islands.
However, due to overcrowding, 27,375 people have already been brought from the islands to the mainland this year. This actually violates the agreement, unless the migrants are truly “vulnerable.” However, many migrants are pushing the continent anyway because they significantly improve their chances of fleeing further north. Many of them travel from cities in Greece by public transport to the Albanian border and then try to cross the Western Balkans.
An incident described in the new “Situation Report” demonstrates how perfidious human traffickers continue to operate. According to the report, Greek police arrested three Pakistani human traffickers between the ages of 19 and 36 near Thessaloniki in September. They had previously helped four Afghans and three Pakistanis to get money to go from Turkey to Greece. When they arrived in Greece, the smugglers separated the two Afghan boys from their parents and held them hostage. The objective was to extort 6,000 euros from another son of the family who already lived in Great Britain.
As the report also shows, 321,685 asylum applications were made from January to September despite the corona pandemic. The new leader was Spain (72,500), followed by Germany (60,694), France (60,621), Greece (36,127) and by far Italy (16,051). Almost a third of asylum applications in Germany came from Syrians (26 percent), as well as from Afghans (9.1%) and Iraqis (9.0%).
