The first migrants to be deported from Greece as
part of a controversial new EU plan to tackle the
migration crisis have landed on Turkish soil.
Three boats carrying 202 people departed in the
early hours of the morning from the Greek
Migrants on board the first ferry were escorted
ashore by Turkish police in the port town of Dikilion
Monday morning, as authorities set up a tarp to
prevent gathered media from seeing on board.
A second boat docked shortly afterward.
Greek authorities said there were 136 migrants on
board the two boats from Lesbos - the majority
of them from Pakistan, with others from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India, as well as two Syrians
who had returned voluntarily.
The 66 migrants on board the boat from Chios
included 42 Afghans, authorities said.
According to Greek officials, the migrants had
not applied for asylum. A Turkish official said
Turkey has agreed to accept up to 500 migrants
per day.
Protesters opposed to the deportations also
gathered at Dikili's port. One held a sign reading:
"Refugees welcome. This is your home."
The migrants are the first to be deported under
the auspices of a contentious "one in, one out"
deal struck between the European Union and
Turkey last month.
Under the terms of the deal, anyone who crosses
into Greece illegally after March 20 will be sent
back to Turkey.
For every Syrian sent back to Turkey, a vetted
Syrian refugee will go from Turkey to Europe
to be resettled, although the maximum number
is capped at 72,000 people. In return, the EU
will give Turkey billions in funding to help it
provide for the migrants within its borders, and
grant various political concessions.
Speaking to reporters in Dikili on Monday,
Mustafa Toprak, governor of Izmir province,
revealed that Syrian migrants who are deported
to Turkey would not be sent by ship like the first
group of deportees, but would be flown to the
southern city of Adana.
From there, they would be sent to camps
throughout Turkey's southeast, where the
country shares a border with Syria.
"For every Syrian transported by plane to
Adana then taken to camps, the same number
of Syrians will be sent to Europe," he said.
The plan was agreed upon last month as Europe
struggles to respond to the largest migration
crisis since World War II. More than 1 million
people made "irregular arrivals" inside Europe's
borders in 2015 alone, many of them displaced by
the Syrian civil war.
About 2.7 million Syrian refugees are registered
in Turkey.
Whether the agreement will be successful in
stemming the tide of people into the EU remains
to be seen, and migrant routes are likely to shift.
A backlog in Greece has built up after its neighbor
Macedonia and other countries along the migration
path into Western Europe began blocking access to
migrants.
The new rules may divert the thousands fleeing their
home countries farther west to nations such as Italy.
Thousands of refugees stuck on border as new rules
take hold
On Friday, a report released by Amnesty International condemned the EU agreement and
said Turkey has been forcibly sending people back
to Syria, constituting a violation of international
law -- something Turkey denies.
The report said it found many cases of large-scale
returns from the Turkish province of Hatay, and
called it an "open secret in the region."
"In their desperation to seal their borders, EU
leaders have willfully ignored the simplest of facts:
Turkey is not a safe country for Syrian refugees and
is getting less safe by the day," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's director for Europe and
Central Asia.
A statement from the Turkish foreign ministry said
the Amnesty International report "does not reflect
the truth."
The statement said that Turkey had been observing an "open door policy" for five years with regard to refugees, and complying with the principle of no returns.
Culled CNN
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