Next deportation of irregular migrants set for Friday; arrivals from Turkey continue

The repatriation of third country nationals who illegally entered Greece from Turkey will apparently resume on Friday, nevertheless, more arrivals of Mideast war refugees and irregular migrants exploiting the refugee crisis were reported on various Greek islands this week.

Moreover, the situation at a couple of makeshift migrant / refugee camps, one at the port of Piraeus and the other exactly on the border between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM), remained tense and problematic.

From Brussels, a Commission spokesman on Tuesday said Monday’s first repatriation of 202 third country nationals from two Greek islands to Turkey was conducted with respect for European and international law. The statement by spokesman Margaritis Schinas came as a handful of NGOs and international organizations decried the activation of a recent EU-Turkey agreement to allow the deportation of third country nationals who are not eligible for refugee status. Tuesday’s operation returned 200 Pakistani men back to Turkey, the country from where they had set off for Greek territory, the first “stop” in a journey to other destinations in western and northern Europe.

Conversely, 225 people were reported to have arrived on several eastern Aegean islands from the opposite Turkish coast between Monday morning and Tuesday.

The situation is also apparently worsening for refugees stranded on the islands, as groups of Syrian families continued a sit-down protest at the port of Hios (Chios) on Tuesday, demanding to be allowed to travel to Piraeus and from there to Germany.
On Lesvos (Lesbos) some 100 men, reportedly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, briefly occupied the entrance to the Moria hotspot, part of their demand to be allowed to travel to their preferred destination on the European continent.