The European Union border force Frontex has announced that it is on "high alert" across all the bloc’s borders with Turkey, and aims to provide further support to Greece as thousands of migrants seek to enter the continent through the southeastern European country.
"We have raised the alert level for all borders with Turkey to high," the Frontex spokeswoman said in a statement to AFP on Sunday, adding that, "We have received a request from Greece for additional support. We have already taken steps to redeploy to Greece technical equipment and additional officers."
Greek police said at least 500 people had arrived by sea on three Greek islands near the Turkish coast within a few hours on Sunday morning.
The Frontex announcement came as Turkey on Thursday relaxed curbs on the migrants’ movement through its borders and said Ankara would no longer restrain hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in its territory from reaching Europe despite an agreement struck with the EU in 2016.
A Greek government source said police forces deployed at the border had stopped nearly 10,000 migrants trying to enter from Turkey over the past 24 hours, adding that huge crowds had tried to cross into Greece via the Kastanies Forest in the early hours of Sunday.
Kastanies was the scene of violence a day earlier when riot police used tear gas to repel the migrants on the Turkish side seeking entry, with migrants throwing rocks at the officers.
The Greek government officials have put the number of people gathered on the border with Turkey at 3,000, while the International Organization for Migration estimated the number at 13,000.
The scenes of refugees heading toward Turkey’s border with Greece have sparked fears of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis when over one million refugees arrived in the EU, most of them fleeing conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa.
This time around, there are also fears of a new coronavirus outbreak that has reached some European countries from China.
The European Union and Turkey struck a deal in 2016 under which Turkey would hold back refugees hoping to reach Europe via Turkish territory.
The EU says Ankara had not officially informed the bloc that it had suspended the 2016 deal. The Turkish warning was seen as an attempt to apparently pressure European leaders into backing Turkey’s military campaign in Syria.
This article has been adapted from its original source
