Greece has recently completed building a 40 km wall with an installed hi-surveillance system on the border it shares with Turkey. The country feared the history of 2015 repeating itself when there came a heavy refugee crisis over it. Now that the people of Afghanistan are escaping due to the Taliban capturing it by force. Take a look at the tweets below.
Greece Build A 40km Wall Along Turkey Border, Installs Hitech Surveillance System Fearing Influx Of Migrants From Afghanistan https://t.co/uHcJJpxn4L via @swarajyamag
— Prasanna Viswanathan (@prasannavishy) August 21, 2021
It is now being apprehended that there would be heavy migration of the Afghan citizens into Greece via Turkey and then into Europe.
Greece completes border wall extension to deter potential Afghan migrants https://t.co/Fxy8ZIn1eJ pic.twitter.com/x6BxImzKiH
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 21, 2021
Greek Refugee Crisis: What happened in 2015?
It was then that people from Syria after the Syrian war were entering Europe through Greece. The European Union witnessed a huge migration from its neighbouring countries in 2015. More than 13 lakh people fled to Europe from Syria seeking asylum in various countries like Norway, Switzerland etc. UNHCR informed that the people followed the route of Greece and Italy.
As per UNHCR, 1,00,573 people had migrated on December 29, 2015 itself and reached the EU across the Mediterranean sea, basically into Greece and Italy.
Many of these people went missing. To be precise there were 3735 people missing who were believed to have drowned. Over 75% of those arriving in Europe had survived conflict and persecution in countries like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Even in the 2015 crisis the Afghans accounted for 20% of all the refugees. As per the data, 8,00,000 refugees entered Greece from Turkey via the sea. Of these 80% of migrants arrived in Europe by sea in 2015 and only 150,000 entered Italy.
What is happening now?
Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi said, " there is a need to send the right messages in order to avoid a new migration crisis which Europe is unable to shoulder. Our country will not be a gateway to Europe for illegal Afghan migrants."
There was a proper discussion over the construction of the wall between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
It was also reported that the Turkish PM said, “I pointed out that if a transitional period cannot be established in Afghanistan, the pressure on migration, which has already reached high levels, will increase even more and this situation will pose a serious challenge for everyone.”
Greece Turkey Agreement:
In 2016, Greece and Turkey had come to an agreement to halt the inflow of migrants into Greece via Turkey. Greece agreed to financially support Turkey in exchange of creating a halt. It was after that the people who hadn't applied for asylum in Greece were sent back to Turkey. However in 2020, Turkey again opened its borders for migrants to move to Greece stating that there was no more place available in its perimeter.
This year, as per the report of New York Times, 30,000 Afghan migrants travel out of the country every week since Taliban has taken over. It is sad and condemning that a country's citizens have to leave their motherland due to forceful capture.
Comments
All Comments (0)
Join the conversation