Greece Grapples With Unrest Ahead of Migrant Transfers to Turkey

First transfers under agreement between EU, Turkey set to take place Monday

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI in Athens and AYLA ALBAYRAK in Izmir, Turkey
April 3, 2016 11:27 a.m. ET


Greece is due to start sending Syrian refugees and other migrants back across the Aegean Sea to Turkey on Monday, putting into practice a controversial deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at stemming the migration flow into Europe.

Returns are scheduled to take place from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios and will be carried out by EU border agency Frontex. Government and police officials are bracing themselves for resistance from migrants.

Protests Against Migrants' Presence in Greece and Turkey

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSAPRIL 2, 2016, 12:30 P.M. E.D.T.

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — 'Anti-migrants protesters staged demonstrations in Turkey and Greece against the plan to send back migrants from Greece to Turkey is set to be implemented starting Monday.

At the same time, migrants stranded at a makeshift camp in this small town on Greece's border with Macedonia staged a protest demanding that the border be opened and that they be allowed to continue their journeys to central and northern Europe.

Several dozen people living in the Idomeni camp staged a protest Saturday morning, blocking a local road for about an hour to demand the evacuation of more than 11,000 stranded migrants to "transit centers" across the Greek mainland.

A Syrian Refugee’s Message to the European Union

We fled war to find safety with our families. Why is the E.U. making our lives more miserable?
By LAILA
MARCH 31, 2016

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — WHEN we first got here we had money to buy a little food. Now it’s gone. We stand in line for hours for a sandwich. My husband told a journalist recently: “People are fed up. Maybe tomorrow they will break down the gate and flood across the border.” The journalist said, “How many weapons do you have?” If we knew how to carry weapons or wanted to carry weapons we would not have fled Syria. We want peace. We are sick of killing.

We fled a war, and now the European Union is making war against us, a psychological war. When we hear rumors that we’ll be let into Europe, we celebrate. These leaders give us new hope, then they extinguish it. Why did you open the door to refugees? Why did you welcome people? If they had stopped it before, we would not have come. We would not have risked death, me and my children, and thousands of others, to make the crossing.

Greece, Turkey take legal short-cuts in race to return migrants

Thu Mar 31, 2016 12:40pm EDT Related: WORLD, UNITED NATIONS, TURKEY, GREECEBRUSSELS/ATHENS | BY GABRIELA BACZYNSKA AND KAROLINA TAGARIS
Reuters
Greece and Turkey are rushing through changes to their asylum rules in a race to implement a EU-Turkey agreement on the return of refugees and migrants from Greek islands to Turkey from next Monday, EU officials and diplomats said.

Both Athens and Ankara must amend their legislation to permit the start of a scheme - denounced by the U.N. refugee agency and rights groups - to send back all migrants who crossed to Greece after March 20.

The policy is meant to end the uncontrolled influx of refugees and other migrants in which more than a million people crossed into Europe last year.

Migrant arrivals to Greece rise sharply despite EU-Turkey deal

Wed Mar 30, 2016 4:12pm EDT

ATHENS | BY KAROLINA TAGARIS AND LEFTERIS KARAGIANNOPOULOS

Migrant and refugee arrivals to Greece from Turkey rose sharply on Wednesday, just over a week after the European Union and Turkey struck an agreement intended to cut off the flow and as hundreds marched through central Athens to protest that deal.

The demonstrators included human rights activists, students and migrants from among the thousands stranded in Greece by recent border closures across the Balkans.

Greek authorities recorded 766 new arrivals between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, up from 192 the previous day. Most entered the country via the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos.

Italy reported an even larger jump on Tuesday, when officials there said 1,350 people - mostly from Africa - were rescued from small boats taking a longer migration route across the Mediterranean as the weather warmed up.

Migrants in Greece, Ready to Go Anywhere in Europe, Scramble to Enter E.U. Relocation Program

By LIZ ALDERMANMARCH 26, 2016
Dimitris Bounias contributed reporting.

The New York Times

ATHENS — Under the glare of a naked light bulb, in the tiny one-room apartment where he has taken shelter with three other young Syrian refugees, Ismail Haki clutched the folded white card on which he has pinned all his hopes.

“It’s our only chance,” said Mr. Haki, as he and his companions displayed the cards that showed they have applied for asylum in Europe. “If this works, we don’t know what country we’ll end up in. But at least we’d be in Europe.”

The four men arrived in Greece last month after making a perilous trek from Aleppo, the war-torn Syrian city, to find a hoped-for path to Germany closed. After languishing in a military camp for two weeks, they turned in desperation to a final option and entered a European Union relocation program that might, if they are lucky, place them almost anywhere in Europe but Germany.

A Quandary for Europe: Fighting a War on ISIS Within Its Borders

By STEVEN ERLANGERMARCH 23, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

The New York Times

LONDON — When the United States declared war on Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks, American leaders took the fight to the militant group’s hide-outs in Afghanistan, a faraway and failing state, with an invasion and occupation.

But for Europe’s leaders, who now consider themselves at war with the Islamic State after large-scale terrorist attacks at home, the challenge is more complicated: The enemy’s hide-outs are ghettoized parts of Paris, Brussels and other European cities that amount to mini failed states inside their own borders.

Brussels attacks are hurting refugees in Greece

By Nasos Koukakis, special to CNBC.com
18 Hours Ago
CNBC

The terrorist attacks in Brussels is making it more difficult for the Greek government to manage the refugee crisis, as more and more EU countries become reluctant to allow the arrival of refugees into their territories.

On Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to complain about the poor results of NATO's operation in the Aegean Sea, initiated last month to discourage the influx of refugees and immigrants in the Greek islands.

NATO has been tasked to do reconnaissance and surveillance and to collect information and share this information in real time with the Turkish coast guard, the Greek coast guard and with Frontex to help manage the migrant and refugee crisis and cut the lines of illegal trafficking and smugglers.

Deal Appears to Curb Migrant Flow, but Greece Still Faces ‘Uphill Effort’

By JIM YARDLEY and LIZ ALDERMANMARCH 21, 2016

The New York Times

MYTILENE, Greece — Standing on the southern coastline of the island of Lesbos, Molhim Zreiki peered through binoculars across the narrow strait of the Aegean Sea dividing Greece from Turkey. During the past nine months, hundreds of thousands of refugees had crossed these waters on smuggler rafts to reach Europe.

But how many rafts reached Lesbos on Monday morning?

“None,” said Mr. Zreiki, one of the volunteers who have patrolled the beaches for months to help refugees as they came ashore.

The Greek Coast Guard did pick up two rafts near Lesbos early Monday and brought the 56 people aboard to the island, according to the local police. By comparison, in October an average of 4,400 refugees landed on the island every day.

European Union Grapples With Plan to Return Migrants From Greece to Turkey

By JAMES KANTERMARCH 17, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare

The New York Times

BRUSSELS — European leaders edged closer early on Friday to a deal to return asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey despite a host of legal, political and moral issues raised by their latest effort to quell the migrant crisis.

The common stance agreed by the European Union’s 28 national leaders still needs the approval of Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. He flew here late Thursday for face-to-face talks on Friday.

Those negotiations will revolve around what incentives to grant Turkey, which is not a European Union member, in return for Turkey’s taking on the job of housing more of the migrants while they wait for word on whether they qualify for resettlement in Western Europe.

“We need to put all our efforts into achieving an agreement with Turkey,” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told an early morning news conference. “These will be negotiations that will certainly be anything but easy,” she warned.

Life Inside The Horrid Camp On Greece’s Border

Many of the 14,000 people living in the Idomeni transit camp want to enter Macedonia and continue onto other European countries. But the borders are shut.
 03/17/2016 05:20 pm ET

The Huffington Post

Images taken inside a transit camp near the Greece-Macedonia border show the impact of Europe’s inaction in addressing the spiraling migrant and refugee crisis.

Up to 14,000 people live in the makeshift tent city located near the town of Idomeni, on the Greek side of the border, equipped to house about 2,000 people.

Many of the migrants and refugees in the camp arrived there after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the Greek islands, and hope to enter Macedonia and continue across Balkan countries — like Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia — toward more prosperous European countries like Germany. But that has recently become impossible as the Balkan countries recently shut their borders or tightened frontier policies to people without valid travel documents.

On Monday, hundreds of people stormed out of the Idomeni camp toward Macedonia, hiking for hours and wading through a rain-swollen river, only for many of them to be detained by Macedonian authorities who made them return to Greece.

Refugee crisis: Migrants arriving on Greek islands to be sent back to Turkey within days if deal goes through.

Angela Merkel says deal 'gives the EU a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue'

Caroline Mortimer

The Independent

Refugees landing on Greek islands will be deported within days under a "decisive" draft deal with Turkey.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said the deal “gives [the EU] a chance to get a sustainable, pan-European solution to the refugee issue".

She was speaking on the eve of a summit to sign the deal which will fast rack Turkey’s application to join the EU in exchange for readmitting refugees who have already crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece.

The Latest: Greece demands no ‘fortress states’ on migrants

The Washington Post

By Associated Press March 17 at 5:51 AM
BRUSSELS — The Latest on European efforts to respond to massive migration (all times local):

10:45 a.m.

Greece is insisting that European Union leaders meeting in Brussels must provide for sanctions against member states that unilaterally decide to shut out refugees.

Deputy Defense Minister Dimitris Vitsas, who heads a task force on migration, said Thursday that Europe should not contain “fortress-states.”

Athens has repeatedly criticized fellow EU member Austria for capping the number of migrants it lets in, which had a domino effect through the Balkans and left nearly 46,000 migrants stuck in Greece.

That figure includes 14,000 living in a waterlogged tent city set up round the closed Idomeni border crossing with non EU member Macedonia.

Greek authorities are trying to persuade people in Idomeni to move to organized shelters elsewhere, but have ruled out using violence to evacuate the camp.

A Journey Across Greece, a Bankrupt Land at Risk of Becoming a Refugee Prison More than 44,000 people are already trapped in the country, a number ticking upward each day, as aid groups warn of a potential humanitarian crisis by summer.

By JIM YARDLEYMARCH 17, 2016

The New York Times

IDOMENI, Greece — Taha al-Ahmad’s family is sleeping in mud. His youngest daughter, age 1, lies beneath wet blankets, coughing inside their soggy tent. It has rained for days. Portable toilets are overflowing. Men burn firewood to stay warm. A drone circles overhead. Television trucks beam images of misery to the world.

It is primeval, and surreal, this squalid, improvised border camp of 12,000 refugees, a padlocked waiting room for entering the rest of Europe. Mr. Ahmad, barely two weeks out of Syria, does not understand why his family cannot cross the Macedonian border — roughly a football field away — and continue toward Germany. Hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through last year, but now Macedonia is closed. Europe’s door is slamming shut.

“I am in a very high degree of miserable,” Mr. Ahmad told me, speaking in a singsong English he learned in Syria, as our shoes sank into the muck.

“I ask my friends in Germany and Turkey: ‘What is happening? Tell us,’” he said. “We don’t know what is happening outside.”

U.S. confirms death of ISIS operative Omar al-Shishani

Barbara Starr-Profile-Image
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
Updated 2224 GMT (0624 HKT) March 14, 2016

CNN International

Washington (CNN)Two U.S. officials told CNN that the Obama administration has confirmed that ISIS senior operative Omar al-Shishani is dead.

The officials said he was injured in a U.S. airstrike last week and then died subsequently, though they wouldn't say how they know he is dead.

The initial U.S. assessment was that he was "likely killed" in the strike, but further assessments led them to understand he had been injured and only later died.

He was killed along with 12 additional ISIS fighters in a wave of strikes by drones and manned aircraft.

Since then, CNN has learned that Shishani was at a "shura," or meeting with other officials, at the time of the strike. U.S. officials had emphasized at the time it was publicly announced that they were not certain of his death and were assessing whether the strike killed him.

This Is The Anti-Refugee Party That Won A Big Victory In Germany

The Alternative for Germany party has surged in popularity amid Europe's refugee crisis.
 03/14/2016 06:57 pm ET

The Huffington Post


Nick Robins-Early
World News Reporter, The Huffington Post


An anti-refugee, ultra-conservative populist party made huge gains in Germany's regional elections on Sunday and further cemented its recent surge to the forefront of the nation's politics.

The controversial Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, secured seats in all three regions that voted and was the second-most-popular party in one of them.

The vote is a big victory for the once-fringe party, reflecting national divisions over how Chancellor Angela Merkel has handled the refugee crisis in the first major elections since she implemented Germany's open-border policy last year. Alternative for Germany has been steadily rising in polls since then, amid a current of anti-immigration sentiment.

MACEDONIAN POLICE 'RETURNING' HUNDREDS OF MIGRANTS TO GREECE

BY REUTERS ON 3/14/16 AT 5:47 PM

Newsweek

SKOPJE (Reuters) - The Macedonian police are taking steps to return to Greece a group of migrants who evaded a border fence and crossed in to Macedonian territory on Monday, a police spokeswoman said.

"We are taking measures to return the group to Greece," the Macedonian police spokeswoman said. "Police and army have heightened security on the border at critical points."

The spokeswoman said she believed "several hundred" migrants had crossed, lower than an estimate of 2,000 made by a Reuters photographer.

Hundreds of migrants marched out of a Greek transit camp, hiked for hours along muddy paths and crossed a rain-swollen river to get around a border fence and cross into Macedonia, where they were detained on Monday, authorities said.

Greece steps up efforts to move migrants to sheltered camps

Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:55pm EDT Related: WORLD, GREECE
ATHENS/IDOMENI | BY LEFTERIS KARAGIANNOPOULOS AND PHOEBE FRONISTA

Reuters

Greece increased efforts on Saturday to move thousands of migrants near the border with Macedonia to sheltered camps, as the spread of infection became a concern with one person in a sprawling tent city diagnosed with Hepatitis A.

Stranded in filthy conditions near the northern border town of Idomeni, at least 12,000 people, among them thousands of children, were waiting to cross the frontier although Macedonia and other nations along the so-called Western Balkan route have closed their borders.

Scuffles broke out at the camp in recent days as destitute people scrambled for food and firewood, while many have been sleeping in the open, often in the rain amid low temperatures.

Greek authorities handed out leaflets in Idomeni on Saturday informing people that the main route to northern Europe was shut. The pamphlets urged them to move to buildings and hospitality centers across Greece that have been set aside for the purpose, according to a government official from the country's refugee crisis management coordination body.

Greece: Stranded Migrants Head for Dangerous Route North

By COSTAS KANTOURIS AND KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES ASSOCIATED HAMILO, Greece — Mar 14, 2016, 9:32 AM ET

ABC News

Hundreds of migrants and refugees walked out of an overcrowded camp on the Greek-Macedonian border Monday, determined to use a dangerous crossing to head north.

More than 300 people, including dozens of children, were heading west toward a river that crosses the border, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) outside the village of Idomeni, where some 14,000 people are stranded at a sprawling camp.

They refused to turn back at a Greek police cordon outside the camp.

More than 40,000 people have been stranded in Greece after Macedonia and other ex-Yugoslav countries closed their borders to migrants and refugees — prompting them to seek more dangerous crossings.

Underscoring the risks, police in Macedonia said the bodies of two men and one woman, believed to be migrants, were found Monday in the Suva Reka river near the border with Greece. Twenty migrants crossed safely and another three were hospitalized, authorities said.

Refugee crisis: Macedonia tells Germany they've 'completely failed'

Macedonia is 'paying for the mistakes of the EU' says President Ivanov, as his country seals its border with Greece
Charlotte Beale

The Independent

Macedonia’s President has told Germany "your country has completely failed" in its security response to the refugee crisis.

While praising the "humanity" of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door immigration policy, President Gjorge Ivanov said "the security situation has been entirely ignored" in an interview with German newspaper Bild.

Authorities in Macedonia, which is not a European Union member state, have seized 9,000 forged or stolen passports from refugees.

But Macedonian offers to share intelligence and data on alleged jihadists have been rejected by Europe, Mr Ivanov said.

"We were told: we cannot cooperate with you; you are a third party country."