Turkey prevented Syrian migrants crossing into Greece, group member says

Turkish security forces have prevented a group of hundreds of Syrian migrants from crossing Turkey’s northwestern border into Greece, a representative of the migrant group organising a convoy dubbed “Caravan of Light” said on Wednesday.

“We wanted to cross the border and they refused. There was around 600 people in the convoy. We were blocked,” the representative of the group told Reuters from the Turkish town of Ipsala, requesting anonymity.

Video footage filmed by the migrants showed Turkish security personnel dragging away migrants who had gathered with their bags in a rural area. The representative said the incident had taken place on Tuesday.

Reuters could not independently verify the date the video was filmed, but the location was identifiable on the highway leading to the Greek-Turkey border.

The Edirne governor’s office, which covers Ipsala town, was not immediately available for comment on the incident.

Last weekend, Greek police said they rescued 92 illegal migrants who were discovered naked, and some with injuries, close to the northern border with Turkey.

They said an investigation by Greek police and officials from the EU border agency Frontex found evidence that the migrants crossed a river into Greek territory in rubber dinghies from Turkey.

Ankara dismissed accusations it had mistreated them and accused Greece of covering up its own poor treatment of them.

Greece was on the frontline of a European migration crisis in 2015 and 2016, when around a million refugees fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived in Europe through Greece, mainly via Turkey.

The number of arrivals has fallen since then. But Greek authorities said they had recently seen an increase in attempted arrivals through the Turkish land border and the Greek islands.

[Reuters]