Migrants flock to Lesbos as Turkey opens floodgates

LESBOS: Migrants trickled through permeable borders to Greece from Turkey yesterday, as thousands more gathered on the Turkish side seeking entry after Ankara relaxed curbs on their movement.

At least 220 people had arrived by sea on the Greek island of Lesbos yesterday morning, a Greek defence ministry source said.

Further north, groups waded across a river at Kastanies on the shared border.

Turkey said on Thursday it would no longer restrain hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in its territory from reaching Europe, after an air strike on Idlib in neighbouring Syria killed 33 Turkish soldiers. Its announcement triggered an almost instant rush to the borders it shares with European Union member Greece.

There was tension at Kastanies on Saturday after riot police used teargas to repel hundreds of migrants on the Turkish side demanding access to Greece.

“Yesterday there were 9,600 attempts to violate our borders, and all were dealt with successfully,” deputy defence minister Alkiviadis Stefanis told Greece’s Skai TV.

The International Organisation for Migration put the number of people along the Greek-Turkish border at 13,000. By late on Saturday, buses in Turkish cities were still being loaded with people bound for the border area, it said.

Greece has said there was an orchestrated attempt on its borders, and has accused Turkey of actively guiding migrants.

“Not only are they not stopping them, but they are helping them,” Gen Stefanis told Skai.

Greece was a gateway for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers into Europe in 2015 and 2016. There are already more than 40,000 migrants on the Aegean islands, living in severely overcrowded camps and filthy conditions.

Last week, clashes broke out on Lesbos between riot police and locals to create closed detention centres to move the existing migrant population. Locals say the islands are suffering a disproportionate burden. The European Union said it was supporting Greece.

Migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestinian territories arrive on a dinghy near the city of Mytilene, after crossing part of the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the island of Lesbos yesterday.

Greece has vowed to keep a mass influx out. “We don’t want this influx in our country,” Migration Minister Notis Mittarachi said.