Migrant border crisis deepens
Fingers pointed after migrant shot dead
KASTANIES, GREECE/ EDIRNE, TURKEY •Greek and Turkish riot police deployed on their shared border fired tear gas on Wednesday as hundreds of migrants tried again to cross into Greece, amid an escalating war of words between Athens and Ankara about what was happening.
Turkey accused Greek forces of shooting dead one migrant and wounding five others, a charge strongly denied by Greece, which said Turkish police were using tear gas to help the migrants illegally cross to its territory.
More than 10,000 migrants have been trying to breach the border since Turkey said last Thursday it would no longer abide by a 2016 deal with the European Union to halt illegal migration flows to Europe in return for billions of euros in aid.
Smoke wafted above the Kastanies border crossing, about 920 km northeast of Athens, as Greek soldiers fired warning shots in the air. A Greek army truck with loudspeakers told the migrants that the border was closed.
Greece and the European Union accuse Turkey of goading migrants to cross the border as a way of pressuring Brussels into offering more money or supporting Ankara’s geopolitical aims in the Syrian conflict.
Turkey, which already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees and faces another influx from an upsurge in fighting in northwest Syria, says it cannot take any more and that EU aid falls short of what is needed.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaking in Ankara after talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, announced additional humanitarian aid worth $90 million for vulnerable people in northwest Syria.
Borrell also described the situation on the Turkey-greece border as “unacceptable” and urged Ankara not to encourage more migrants to enter the EU illegally.
Senior EU officials visited Kastanies on Tuesday and announced $1 billion of new aid to Athens to help tackle the migrant crisis.
Erdogan, long at odds with the EU over a range of issues including Cyprus and Turkey’s human rights record, told his ruling AK Party that Greece must respect migrants’ human rights.
A Turkish doctor at a hospital in Edirne, about 240 km northwest of Istanbul, and near the border, Mustafa Burak Sayhan, said the emergency ward had received five patients on Wednesday with firearm wounds as well as the body of one man shot dead.
EU leaders fear a repeat of the 2015-16 migrant crisis, when more than a million migrants trekked to western Europe via Turkey and the Balkans, straining European security and welfare services and boosting support for farright parties.