Refugees vow to remain in camp
EU, Turkey praise interim agreement to curb influx
REFUGEES stranded at Greece’s border with Macedonia vowed to stay put yesterday, hours after the EU and Turkey hailed a tentative accord to stop a scramble by hundreds of thousands of people to reach Europe from war zones.
At least 30 000 people have been trapped in various parts of Greece from a cascade of border shutdowns further north blocking a so-called “Balkans corridor” used by more than a million people since the migratory wave started a year ago.
There was no sign the pressure was easing yesterday, as thousands of people queued up at Greece’s northern border for Macedonia to open a border gate.
Greek police say it has not opened in at least 24 hours, but heavy rain and a declaration by EU leaders that the Balkans route was now “shut” did not dampen their resolve.
“We will stay here even if we all die,” said Kadriya Jasem, a 25 year old woman from Aleppo in Syria among at least 13 000 people living in squalor in a makeshift camp in Idomeni, a village on the Greek side of the border.
She held a four-month-old baby in her arms who she said needed a doctor. “Please open the border, if only for the children.”
At an EU summit on Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told leaders of the bloc Ankara was willing to take back all refugees who enter Europe from Turkey in future in return for financial aid, faster EU entry talks and quicker visa-free travel for its citizens.
The UN refugee agency said the EU’s “quick fix” deal to send back refugees en masse to Turkey would contravene their right to protection under European and international law.
Vincent Cochetel, Europe regional director of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said Europe’s commitment to resettle 20 000 refugees over two years, on a voluntary basis, remained “very low”.
“The collective expulsion of foreigners is prohibited under the European Convention of Human Rights,” he said.
People fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond have flooded into the EU since early last year, heading north through the Balkans to Germany.
EU leaders aim to work out key details with Turkey by the next scheduled summit on March 17-18. European Council president Donald Tusk, said the outcome would show refugees there was no longer a path into Europe for people seeking a better life.
“The days of irregular migration to Europe are over,” he told a joint news conference with Davutoglu.
There was no let-up in the number of people arriving on outlying islands, with the coastguard reporting 391 new arrivals in the past 24 hours. Babies sat on cardboard at the frontier. It had rained heavily the night before, soaking through hundreds of tiny tents designed for much milder weather. Many people were coughing. “I’m afraid that we will die here, we are all sick. We are living like wild animals but if we leave we will lose our priority number to go to Europe, if Macedonia ever let us pass,” said Amina Khalil, 20, of Aleppo. – Reuters