Officials bracing for migration wave
Incoming flows expected to accelerate, peak in November; as arriving boats are now single-use
Greece and the rest of the European Union are bracing for ever-larger waves of migrants and refugees.
In the first eight months of the year, 18,244 migrants and refugees arrived in Greece by land and sea. In the whole of 2022, there had been 17,122 arrivals and in 2021, partly because of the travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, just 8,745. In the first two-thirds of this month alone, there were more than 7,000 new arrivals.
These are far from the 2015 numbers, when 850,000 migrants had entered through Greece. But the political climate has changed, a lot. In 2015, Germany had been largely welcoming, before it, and other central European and Balkan countries shut down the migrant route. In a recent issue, German magazine Der Spiegel was wondering whether Germany “will make it” as it did in 2015, as asylum demands are spiking and local communities are more resistant than ever.
Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Kairidis, in response to a question by Kathimerini, said that “Italy faces a far more intense situation; we are in a state of heightened readiness in Greece, but the problem is manageable.” Greek officials believe that the new migrant wave will peak in November.
The tragedy of the Egyptian boat, packed with migrants and refugees, that capsized in international waters of the southwestern coast of Greece, drowning several hundred, has affected Coast Guard operations. Greece had always officially denied it engaged in pushbacks but some sources, under the guise of anonymity, following that incident, say the Coast Guard has abandoned pushbacks, to the delight of traffickers, who interpreted this as being allowed to operate with impunity and increase their business. Government officials still refuse to confirm these allegation and that there was no new policy that has been interpreted by the traffickers as an invitation to boost their business.
A somewhat different explanation for the increased flows is that new, cheap “single-use” boats are being manufactured in Turkey with flimsy wooden decks that can easily be punched through as long as they reach Greek territorial waters or sight a coast guard vessel. These boats also have cheap engines that can achieve a speed of no more that 4-5 knots. In previous years, multi-use boats were used and returned to Turkey as soon as they deposited their passengers.
