EU-Turkey
Refugee Deal Dying in the Greek Islands
Ever
since the failed military putsch in Turkey, the number of refugees
making the trip across the Aegean to Greece has been rising again.
The camps on the islands are full and the EU-Turkey deal is in danger
of collapse.
By Eren Caylan,
Giorgos Christides and Maximilian Popp
October 18, 2016
10:57 AM Print FeedbackComment
Abdul Shakoor
thought nothing could shock him anymore. He has, after all, survived
an assassination attempt by Pakistani security agents, he claims, in
addition to torture in a Lahore prison. "But I was wrong."
Thirty-three-year-old
Shakoor is standing in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of
Lesbos and pointing at the overcrowded plastic tents inside of which
women, children and the ill are lying pushed up against one another,
at the cement wall that surrounds the camp, and at the barbed wire.
"I would have expected these kinds of conditions in Pakistan or
Afghanistan," he says. "But not in Greece."
As a result of the
refugee influx, the infrastructure on Lesbos and other Greek islands
is in danger of collapsing. Europe's model is no longer working.
Although the number of migrants dropped after the EU-Turkey deal came
into effect in March, the number of refugees heading for Greece has
once again gone up, partially in response to the failed military coup
in Turkey on June 15. In August and September, 6,527 refugees crossed
the Aegean, twice as many as in May and June. The crisis in Turkey,
it seems, isn't just scaring many Turks, it is also driving refugees
out of the country.
Currently, there are
at least 15,000 migrants on the Greek islands, with the camps
available only able to handle half that many. And new boats arrive
every day. Skirmishes between camp residents -- and between refugees
and locals -- have become a frequent occurrence.
The Greek government
is facing a dilemma, says political advisor Gerald Knaus, whose think
tank, the European Stability Initiative, helped conceive the
EU-Turkey deal. The Greeks, he says, can no longer ignore the chaos
on the islands.
'Dead in a Few
Months'
If Prime Minister
Alexis Tsipras carries through on his recent pledge to move large
numbers of refugees onto the mainland, it would be a signal to the
smugglers in Turkey that the Aegean Route has reopened. "If the
EU doesn't do anything quickly," Knaus warns, "the refugee
deal will be dead in a few months."
Darkness falls over
Moria. Abdul Kapoor is sitting in friends' shack and pointing to a
cell-phone photo of burning tents. In late September, refugees in
Moria set a fire out of frustration at the conditions in the camp.
Shakoor is expecting further conflicts. "The people are
desperate," he says.
He says that he grew
up in an affluent family in Pakistan. He father owned land, and
Shakoor ran a restaurant and became involved politics. After he
switched from the governing party, the Muslim League, to the
opposition, his former party allies threatened him with death. He sat
in jail for three months in Lahore, was beaten up, tortured with iron
rods and given electric shocks. His body is covered in scars and burn
wounds. Shakoor has a wife and five children in Pakistan and has
chosen a pseudonym for this article out of fear for their safety. He
fled to Iran and then to Turkey and Greece. He has been stuck in
Moria since March.
According to the
agreement, migrants should actually be held in the Greek island
camps, registered and then sent back to Turkey after accelerated
proceedings. Greek authorities, however, have not acceded to
Brussels' demand to recognize Turkey as a "safe country of
origin." Instead, they are examining each case individually to
determine if the applicant has the right to protection in Europe.
In the wake of the
EU-Turkey deal, Greece has only deported 643 migrants, including 53
Syrians who returned to Turkey voluntarily. In September, more
refugees reached the Greek Islands every day than migrants left the
country in the entire month.
Stuck in Moria
The Greek
authorities are overwhelmed by the situation. On Lesbos, nine
officers have been charged with making decisions about the
applications of 6,000 refugees. One of those officers was briefly
hospitalized for burn-out. Several months ago, the EU announced it
was sending hundreds of asylum experts to Greece but so far,
according to the Greek government, only three-dozen officials have
arrived on the islands.
In his Lesbos
office, lawyer Emmanouil Chatzichalkias is leafing through the files
of refugees who have been stuck in Moria for several months. He says
that nobody knows when their applications will be evaluated --
whether it will be a week, a month or a year.
He represents a
woman with five children from Afghanistan who arrived on Lesbos in
April, but weren't registered by the authorities until early October.
Now the mother needs to wait another half-year for her hearing.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), fewer than 5 percent of the applications submitted by
Afghans and Iraqis have been processed since April. For weeks, the
authorities refused to allow a Pakistani who had a heart attack and
couldn't be treated on Lesbos to leave. "Lesbos has turned into
a prison," says Chatzichalkias.
But why has the
number of refugees been rising significantly in the last few months?
The reason can be found on the other side of the Aegean, in Turkey.
In a stuffy,
neon-lit hotel room in Izmir, a port city in southwestern Turkey,
Ziad Zamriq, 33, is waiting for a smuggling boat to take him and his
wife to Greece. Sitting next to each other on the bed, Zamriq is
holding his wife's hand. "If we had an alternative, we wouldn't
be getting onto the boat," he says.
When Zamriq arrived
in Istanbul in the summer of 2014 after escaping from Syria, he
thought he had arrived at his destination. He found a job in a
souvenir shop and rented an apartment on the edge of the city.
Zamriq, who had worked as a tourist guide in Damascus, wanted to stay
in Turkey.
Post-Coup Turkey
Even prior to July
15, refugees had trouble earning enough money to make ends meet in
Turkey. Although more than 2.7 million people have found refuge in
Turkey since the beginning of the civil war in Syria, more than in
any other country, most of them live in the big cities, like Istanbul
or Ankara, without any kind of support from the government.
Since the attempted
coup, Zamriq says, it has become almost impossible for migrants to
find jobs. Tourism has collapsed and the economy is stagnating -- and
Zamriq lost his job in the souvenir store. He initially got by with
odd jobs in construction, factories or restaurants but his wages
still weren't enough to pay his rent.
In early July,
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held out the prospect of
Turkish citizenship for Syrians. But Zamriq says that he hasn't even
been able to register as a refugee. At his last appointment at the
office for foreigners in Istanbul in August, he was told that Syrians
are categorically no longer being given papers. Two friends of his,
he says, were recently deported back to Syria -- together with two
dozen other refugees.
UNHCR's European
head, Vincent Cochetel, has said that even the few Syrians who
voluntarily returned to Turkey from Greece have so far not received
any titles of protection, despite the fact that Turkey had agreed to
do so as part of the deal. The refugees are housed in camps to which
UNHCR representatives haven't had access since the coup attempt. That
situation in turn supports the decision of the Greek authorities not
to view Turkey as a safe third-country. The Center for Political
Beauty, an artist collective that wanted to fly refugees from Turkey
to Germany, has now filed a lawsuit in Berlin against the EU-Turkey
deal.
Ziad Zamriq walks
through the neighborhood surrounding Izmir's train station, past
clothing stores in which life vests are on display. He has an
appointment with a smuggler, a middle-aged Syrian who introduces
himself as Abu Ali. Before April, he says, he smuggled people to
Greece for 700 euros per person. Since the EU-Turkey deal, fewer
refugees have dared to make the journey and he has dropped his prices
by half. Abu Ali is hoping that business will pick up again soon,
though. Since July 15, inspections carried out by the Turkish coast
guard have become less frequent.
'The End of European
Asylum Policy'
The hunt for
supporters of the coup has partly paralyzed Turkey's state apparatus.
Erdogan has suspended several thousand police and military officials.
At the same time, the war against the PKK, the Kurdish terror group,
and the military operation in Syria are tying up troops. "At the
moment we have more pressing concerns than policing our borders,"
an official says.
And so a storm is
brewing. The neglected inspections, the economic pressure on the
refugees in Turkey, the powerlessness of the Greek authorities and
the overfilled refugee camps -- this all together is increasing the
pressure on the refugee deal. President Erdogan is also threatening
to scuttle the deal over the issue of visa-requirements for Turks.
Political advisor
Knaus, whom many people describe as the creator of the refugee deal,
warns that if the deal fails, chaos could result. Hundreds of
thousands of refugees, he says, would arrive in Greece and try to
break through the fences to the north. The Balkans would turn into a
battleground for migrants, smugglers, border guards and soldiers,
Knaus says. "That would be the end of European asylum policy."
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