Vigilantes along Greek border say ‘no more’ migrants

EVROS,GREECE — The farmers and pensioners wore black clothes and heavy boots, imitating Greece’s special forces, and trod along a rural road on a night patrol looking for migrants trying to cross the northern land border with Turkey. “We’ll get you next time!” they shouted at a small group of men who had made it over and fled.

Two hundred miles to the south, on the border island of Lesbos, locals angrily blocked a dinghy full of migrants from Turkey, including a pregnant woman and children, from getting off on a pier.

“No more!” they yelled, cursing.

On land and at sea, one thing is clear along Greece’s meandering border with Tur- key: This is not 2015 anymore. Then, while much of Europe was convulsed with anger and fear as more than 1 million asylum-seekers poured in from distant wars, Greeks helped rescue refu- gees at sea, or greeted them with empathy as they traversed the country en route to northern Europe.

The citizens of the island of Lesbos were even nomi- nated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, the reaction is overt hostility. A new center-right Greek government has temporarily suspended accepting asylum applicationsand pledged to summarily expel those who come in order to discourage migrants. And ordinary citizens, many of whom who are fed up, are taking matters into their own hands.

Villagers from border towns are forming civilian patrols to round up migrants. Islanders have set up road- blocks to stop migrants from reaching refugee camps. Others have physically attacked aid workers and journalists, accusing them of helping migrants come to the island.

For Greeks, the frustration is palpable, and the situation different from five years ago. This time around, Turkey, itself home to more than 3 million Syrian refugees, has opened the gates to thousands of migrants to enter Greece as it tries to pressure Europe for help in the conflict in Syria.

Unlike 2015, this crisis feels far less spontaneous than manufactured, and many Greeks want none of it. The Greek government has responded with a crackdown, shutting the borders, deploying the army and drumming up a wartime rhetoric against Turkey, which it accuses of orchestrating an invasion.

As it is, for Greeks, the migrant crisis of five years ago has yet to end. The problems it saddled the country with have persisted and wrung almost every drop of generosity from a people who had prided themselves on their compassion.

Refugee camps on Lesbos, and other islands, continue to expand and fester. They have spilled into local communities who feel they have gotten little support from the government or the European Union. Relatively few of the migrants have been moved on to the mainland, and fewer still have been moved from Greece, to alleviate the burden. There is no resolution in sight.

Instead, thousands more continued to arrive, even after Turkey had mostly cut off the flow of desperate asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, as part of an agreement with the EU.