Migrants sent back from Greece arrive in Turkey under EU deal

[Valin]

Reuters:

DIKILI, Turkey/LESBOS, Greece | By Dasha Afanasieva and Karolina Tagaris

April 4 2016

 

Migrants sent back from the Greek island of Lesbos began arriving in Turkey on Monday under a disputed European Union scheme aimed at closing the main route by which a million people poured across the Aegean Sea to Greece in the last year.

 

Under a deal denounced by refugee agencies and human rights campaigners, Ankara will take back all migrants and refugees who enter Greece illegally, including Syrians, in return for the EU taking in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and rewarding it with more money, early visa-free travel and progress in its EU membership negotiations.

 

Two Turkish-flagged passenger boats carrying 131 migrants arrived in the Turkish town of Dikili early on Monday, accompanied by two Turkish coast guard vessels with a police helicopter buzzing overhead, a Reuters witness said. A coastguard official on the Greek island of Chios told Reuters that 66 people, most of them Afghans, were also sent to Turkey on a third boat early on Monday.

 

The aim of the EU-Turkey deal is to discourage migrants from perilous crossings, often in small boats and dinghies, and to break the business model of human smugglers who have fueled Europe's biggest migration wave since World War Two.

 

A few hours after the first boat of returnees set sail from Lesbos, Greek coast guard patrol vessels rescued at least two dinghies carrying more than 50 migrants and refugees, including children and a woman in a wheelchair, trying to reach the island.

 

(Snip)