Greece deports 100 as asylum claims go down

LESBOS, Friday

Greece deported a second batch of more than 100 migrants to Turkey while Germany announced a sharp drop in asylum claims as Europe toughens efforts to end its worst migration crisis since World War II.

A police source on the Greek island of Lesbos said 45 Pakistani men had been put on a Turkish ferry, despite efforts by activists to stop the operation under an EU-Turkey deal that has been slammed by rights groups.

A small group of activists who jumped into the water and clung onto the ferry’s anchor were pried off by coastguards and briefly detained.

Some 30 protesters also gathered at Lesbos’ port, chanting “Stop deportations”, “EU, shame on you” and “Freedom for the refugees”.

Turkish state television showed the migrants getting off the boat in the port of Dikili, where they were taken to tents set up for registration and health checks.

A second group of 79 mainly Pakistani migrants then left Lesbos for Turkey aboard a catamaran, police sources said. Both vessels have been chartered by EU border agency Frontex.

The first transfer of more than 200 people from the islands of Lesbos and Chios to Turkey took place Monday but a last-minute flurry of asylum applications to avoid expulsion has stalled the process.

ASYLUM APPLICATIONS DROP

In Germany, Europe’s top destination for refugees, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced that asylum applications had dropped by 66 per cent in March after a string of border closures in the Balkans halted the influx from Greece.

“In December, it was 120,000 people, in January 90,000, in February 60,000 and in March 20,000,” he said, adding that the EU’s deal with Turkey had “got off to a good start”.

The highly disputed deal is designed to discourage people from making the perilous Aegean crossing from Turkey to Greece in flimsy boats, by presenting them with the threat of deportation straight back to where they came from.

For every Syrian refugee sent back to Turkey, one Syrian is supposed to be resettled in Europe.

In return for its cooperation, Turkey has been promised $6.8 billion in aid to help the 2.7 million Syrian refugees it is hosting, and visa-free European travel for Turks by June.

But rights groups have criticised the agreement, with Amnesty International claiming Turkey could not be considered a safe country for the return of refugees.

A Spanish far-left party filed a court complaint against acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for “crimes against humanity” over his support for the accord.

THREATEN TO DROP DEAL

And the combative Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday warned the EU that Ankara would drop the deal if Brussels failed to live up to its side of the bargain.

“There are precise conditions. If the EU does not take the necessary steps, then Turkey will not implement the agreement,” Erdogan said.

Turkey’s long-stalled accession process to join the EU is also supposed to be re-energised under the accord.

Turkish coastguard operations to intercept migrants and clamp down on people-smugglers have sharply reduced the numbers arriving in Europe, with more than 65,000 people stopped from crossing the sea since January.

Erdogan has also argued that Turkey deserves something in return for its commitment to refugees, on whom it has spent $10 billion since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

“Three million people are being fed on our budget,” he said.