Europe’s migrant portal
Borders are often tense, abrasive places, but the remote Greek prefecture of Evros, near the Greece–Turkey land border, is tenser than most. Situated in the northeast of the country at the geographical frontier between Europe and Asia, most of the border is marked by the Evros River, which forms a natural barrier between Greece and Turkey for more than 200 kilometres before it breaks into a swampy delta and comes out in the Aegean near the port of Alexandroupoli.
This natural frontier straddles one of the world’s most militarised borders. For decades, the Greek and Turkish armies have warily watched each other across the river and taken occasional pot shots at each other. Until recently, much of the border was sown with antipersonnel mines, and soldiers and military vehicles are a ubiquitous presence in the region.
Today, the prospect of a Turkish invasion has receded, but a new kind of confrontation is quietly unfolding in this tranquil rural landscape of gentle hills, cultivated plains and nondescript towns. For the Evros prefecture is now the main transit route for undocumented immigrants seeking entry into Greece and Western Europe. Some come across the Evros in inflatable boats provided by people smugglers. Others simply walk across the 13-kilometre strip between Kastanies and the village of Vyssa, where the Evros curves briefly into Turkish territory near the former Ottoman capital of Edirne.
This confrontation isn’t immediately obvious. Just outside Kastanies, the Ardas River bay is one of the prettiest spots in mainland Greece. In summer, its dense woodlands, grassy banks and lowered water levels attract Greek families for picnics and leisurely lunches at the nearby Café Artisio. By night, a different kind of visitor passes through these woods and fields. Afghans, Iraqis, Georgians, Pakistanis, Palestinians and Somalis have all crossed the border in recent months, bringing their few possessions, some US dollars and their dreams of work or safety.
‘Every night there are people coming through here,’ says Stelios, the owner of the Artisio. ‘I’ve heard that some of them are very aggressive. They infect the police with illnesses.’ Stelios doesn’t say what these illnesses are, but the numbers at least aren’t exaggerated. According to local police in Evros, 7,000 migrants have been detained at the border since floodwaters receded in January last year – a 30 per cent increase on the same period the previous year.
Geopolitical tensions
The Evros border is a dangerous frontier to cross without a passport. Between 1999 and 2008, at least 66 migrants were killed straying into minefields and another 42 maimed and injured. In the past two years, these incidents have ceased, as a result of de-mining operations carried out by the Greek military, but the border remains a hazardous natural barrier.
Dozens of people have drowned crossing the Evros. In June last year, 16 bodies were found floating in the river when their boats capsized in two separate incidents.
These incursions have added a new element of insecurity to an area that is already charged with geopolitical tensions. Photographer Steven Greaves and I experienced these sensitivities at first hand when we drove into the restricted military area of Kastanies, hoping to photograph one of the remaining minefields.
We found no minefields, but as we were leaving the zone, we were stopped by a Greek military jeep. The soldiers weren’t mollified by our explanation that we were journalists researching a story about illegal immigration at the border. A flurry of phone calls and radio messages up the chain of command brought policemen and then a senior army officer. Our photographic equipment and computer were confiscated and we were ordered to follow a police car to the town of Orestiada for further questioning.
When we arrived at the police station, the situation was amicably resolved, and the Orestiada police chief appeared to accept that we weren’t spies. But the following morning, we were astonished to find a police tail on our car. Over the course of the day, four different cars followed us wherever we went. For the remainder of our stay in Evros, a policeman continued to monitor our movements with a tenacity that wasn’t matched by his mastery of the art of concealment.
It was difficult to attribute this vigilance to security concerns alone. Illegal immigration is a touchy subject in the Evros prefecture. According to a number of national and international human rights groups, the Greek police and army also carry out secret – and illegal – deportations across the Evros, in which migrants are brought in trucks to the river by night and ferried across to the Turkish side. And in the summer of last year, a mass grave containing dozens of bodies of unidentified migrants who had died crossing the border was discovered near the town of Soufli.
The Evros police have also been accused of verbally and physically abusing migrants, charges vigorously denied by Mr Charamalopolous, chief of the Orestiada police, who insists on the exemplary behaviour of his officers. ‘We are trying to behave in the best possible way toward these people,’ he says. ‘Every allegation has been investigated. We have nothing to hide.’
There’s no doubt that the influx of irregular migrants has placed the Evros police under strain, but our Stasi-like surveillance didn’t give the impression of transparency. Nor did a tightly controlled visit to Filakio, one of the many migrant detention centres in Greece that have often featured in allegations of human rights abuses.
A well-drilled police lieutenant gave us a limited tour of the facilities, but we weren’t allowed to approach the detainees or even speak to them. The prison-like facilities were clean and presentable enough, but the bleak expressions of the men, women and even young children watching us from behind barred windows and cell doors told a very different story to our guide’s upbeat assessment.
Maritime frontier
The Evros land border is only one component in a complicated Greek geography that includes hundreds of islands and thousands of kilometres of coastline. Until this year, most undocumented migrants came to Greece by sea, in boats, dinghies and even jetskis from the Turkish coast. Evidence of these journeys can be found in the punctured dinghies, life jackets and clothes that litter beaches throughout the Dodecanese islands – and also in the graves of those who didn’t survive the crossings; more than 1,400 migrants have drowned in the Aegean. Between 40 and 60 Kurds and Afghans are buried at the Saint Panteleimon cemetery, which overlooks Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos, identified only by their nationalities and numbers.
Recently, the numbers coming to these islands have fallen dramatically for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Today, the grim former warehouses at Pagani, one of the worst Greek detention centres, are mostly empty, its blackened walls and Arabic slogans a reminder of the hunger strikes and protests that led the authorities to close it in October 2009.
Migrants still cross the narrow strip of water between Turkey and the nearby islands, but these journeys have become less frequent. During a night patrol with the Samos coastguard, we didn’t encounter a single migrant vessel as the high-powered patrol boat sluiced back and forth across the strait of Samos only a few kilometres from the Turkish coast.
The Hellenic Coast Guard has rescued thousands of migrants, but its officers have also been accused by human rights organisations of physically abusing migrants and carrying out summary deportations known as ‘pushbacks’ – puncturing or demobilising their boats and dragging them into Turkish territorial waters.
As we bobbed about on the maritime border in the strait of Samos, Lieutenant Emmanoui Schonarauis cheerfully explained some of the strategies used by his crew when they encountered boats along the maritime border, from pretending to be Turkish to moving the boat up and down in front of their boats and other ‘jokes to make them afraid’.
Schonarauis didn’t say so explicitly, but it was obvious that these ‘jokes’ weren’t intended for the coastguards’ amusement. Their purpose was to prevent or deter migrants from entering Greek territory, where they might be able to claim asylum. As a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Greek government is theoretically committed to providing refugee protection to those who ask for it. But Greece has one of the lowest rates of acceptance for asylum seekers in Europe. Asylum applications are initially assessed by the police themselves, and nearly all applicants are rejected in the first instance. Appealing against rejection is a difficult and expensive process.
Rejected asylum seekers can be held in detention for three months and then issued with deportation orders. But since many of them come from countries without diplomatic representation in Greece, they are usually told to make their own way out of the country within 30 days. Most end up in Athens or in ports on the Adriatic coast, hoping to go to other European countries, where they are likely to be arrested again and put through the same detention and expulsion procedures.
In limbo
Few migrants remain in Greece willingly, but those who succeed in reaching Western Europe are likely to be ensnared by the EU’s Dublin II regulation, which obliges all asylum seekers to make their appeals in their first country of arrival. All migrants detained by Greek police have their fingerprints fed into a European database and those arrested outside Greece can be deported back again to make their applications in a country that hardly ever accepts them.
This dysfunctional system has left tens of thousands of migrants trapped in Greece in a state of permanent illegality. ‘It’s a crazy situation,’ says Toulina Demeli, a refugee lawyer in Lesvos. ‘They’re not allowed to come, they’re not allowed to stay, and they’re not allowed to leave.’
Demeli works at the Villa Azadi (House of Freedom) near Mytilene, a former hospital for the disabled that has been converted into a reception centre for unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents, and offers a temporary refuge to mostly Afghan teenagers who would otherwise be living on the street. But this freedom is strictly relative. As soon as they reach 18, they will be released into a Greek society that has no place for them, and forced to choose between illegality and returning to a war zone where many of them have no parents.
The system has been repeatedly condemned by national and international organisations working with refugees. Until recently, neither Greece nor the EU appeared disposed to do anything about a situation that has effectively turned Greece into a dumping ground for Europe’s unwanted people. In September last year, Greece presented its National Action Plan on Asylum Reform and Migration Management to the European Commission, which pledged a raft of reforms, including the transfer of the asylum process from the police to a civilian authority. Both the UN high commissioner for refugees and the Greek Council for Refugees cautiously welcomed the proposals, and the European commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmström, pledged European financial assistance to implement them.
It remains to be seen whether the EU or the Greek government has the political will to reform a system that has left thousands of migrants marginalised and stranded, and often reduced to bare survival. ‘Europe has to understand that we are a transit country,’ says Zoe Liebetezou, team leader of the Hellenika Rescue team in Lesvos. ‘Nobody wants to stay here – to do what? Even we have problems, so the problem is not for us. The problem is for everybody.’
For the time being, the main priority appears to be to stop people coming across the border and to make life as difficult as possible for those who do. And as the Greek economic crisis continues to bite, the situation isn’t likely to improve. In November last year, units from the EU’s armed Rapid Intervention Border Teams were deployed for the first time on the Evros border.
‘Things are going to be very hard for everyone in Greece over the next few months,’ says Papa Stratis, a Greek Orthodox priest who provides migrants with food, clothing and humanitarian assistance in Lesvos. ‘But they are going to be particularly hard for migrants.’
February 2011
This natural frontier straddles one of the world’s most militarised borders. For decades, the Greek and Turkish armies have warily watched each other across the river and taken occasional pot shots at each other. Until recently, much of the border was sown with antipersonnel mines, and soldiers and military vehicles are a ubiquitous presence in the region.
Today, the prospect of a Turkish invasion has receded, but a new kind of confrontation is quietly unfolding in this tranquil rural landscape of gentle hills, cultivated plains and nondescript towns. For the Evros prefecture is now the main transit route for undocumented immigrants seeking entry into Greece and Western Europe. Some come across the Evros in inflatable boats provided by people smugglers. Others simply walk across the 13-kilometre strip between Kastanies and the village of Vyssa, where the Evros curves briefly into Turkish territory near the former Ottoman capital of Edirne.
This confrontation isn’t immediately obvious. Just outside Kastanies, the Ardas River bay is one of the prettiest spots in mainland Greece. In summer, its dense woodlands, grassy banks and lowered water levels attract Greek families for picnics and leisurely lunches at the nearby Café Artisio. By night, a different kind of visitor passes through these woods and fields. Afghans, Iraqis, Georgians, Pakistanis, Palestinians and Somalis have all crossed the border in recent months, bringing their few possessions, some US dollars and their dreams of work or safety.
‘Every night there are people coming through here,’ says Stelios, the owner of the Artisio. ‘I’ve heard that some of them are very aggressive. They infect the police with illnesses.’ Stelios doesn’t say what these illnesses are, but the numbers at least aren’t exaggerated. According to local police in Evros, 7,000 migrants have been detained at the border since floodwaters receded in January last year – a 30 per cent increase on the same period the previous year.
Geopolitical tensions
The Evros border is a dangerous frontier to cross without a passport. Between 1999 and 2008, at least 66 migrants were killed straying into minefields and another 42 maimed and injured. In the past two years, these incidents have ceased, as a result of de-mining operations carried out by the Greek military, but the border remains a hazardous natural barrier.
Dozens of people have drowned crossing the Evros. In June last year, 16 bodies were found floating in the river when their boats capsized in two separate incidents.
These incursions have added a new element of insecurity to an area that is already charged with geopolitical tensions. Photographer Steven Greaves and I experienced these sensitivities at first hand when we drove into the restricted military area of Kastanies, hoping to photograph one of the remaining minefields.
We found no minefields, but as we were leaving the zone, we were stopped by a Greek military jeep. The soldiers weren’t mollified by our explanation that we were journalists researching a story about illegal immigration at the border. A flurry of phone calls and radio messages up the chain of command brought policemen and then a senior army officer. Our photographic equipment and computer were confiscated and we were ordered to follow a police car to the town of Orestiada for further questioning.
When we arrived at the police station, the situation was amicably resolved, and the Orestiada police chief appeared to accept that we weren’t spies. But the following morning, we were astonished to find a police tail on our car. Over the course of the day, four different cars followed us wherever we went. For the remainder of our stay in Evros, a policeman continued to monitor our movements with a tenacity that wasn’t matched by his mastery of the art of concealment.
It was difficult to attribute this vigilance to security concerns alone. Illegal immigration is a touchy subject in the Evros prefecture. According to a number of national and international human rights groups, the Greek police and army also carry out secret – and illegal – deportations across the Evros, in which migrants are brought in trucks to the river by night and ferried across to the Turkish side. And in the summer of last year, a mass grave containing dozens of bodies of unidentified migrants who had died crossing the border was discovered near the town of Soufli.
The Evros police have also been accused of verbally and physically abusing migrants, charges vigorously denied by Mr Charamalopolous, chief of the Orestiada police, who insists on the exemplary behaviour of his officers. ‘We are trying to behave in the best possible way toward these people,’ he says. ‘Every allegation has been investigated. We have nothing to hide.’
There’s no doubt that the influx of irregular migrants has placed the Evros police under strain, but our Stasi-like surveillance didn’t give the impression of transparency. Nor did a tightly controlled visit to Filakio, one of the many migrant detention centres in Greece that have often featured in allegations of human rights abuses.
A well-drilled police lieutenant gave us a limited tour of the facilities, but we weren’t allowed to approach the detainees or even speak to them. The prison-like facilities were clean and presentable enough, but the bleak expressions of the men, women and even young children watching us from behind barred windows and cell doors told a very different story to our guide’s upbeat assessment.
Maritime frontier
The Evros land border is only one component in a complicated Greek geography that includes hundreds of islands and thousands of kilometres of coastline. Until this year, most undocumented migrants came to Greece by sea, in boats, dinghies and even jetskis from the Turkish coast. Evidence of these journeys can be found in the punctured dinghies, life jackets and clothes that litter beaches throughout the Dodecanese islands – and also in the graves of those who didn’t survive the crossings; more than 1,400 migrants have drowned in the Aegean. Between 40 and 60 Kurds and Afghans are buried at the Saint Panteleimon cemetery, which overlooks Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos, identified only by their nationalities and numbers.
Recently, the numbers coming to these islands have fallen dramatically for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Today, the grim former warehouses at Pagani, one of the worst Greek detention centres, are mostly empty, its blackened walls and Arabic slogans a reminder of the hunger strikes and protests that led the authorities to close it in October 2009.
Migrants still cross the narrow strip of water between Turkey and the nearby islands, but these journeys have become less frequent. During a night patrol with the Samos coastguard, we didn’t encounter a single migrant vessel as the high-powered patrol boat sluiced back and forth across the strait of Samos only a few kilometres from the Turkish coast.
The Hellenic Coast Guard has rescued thousands of migrants, but its officers have also been accused by human rights organisations of physically abusing migrants and carrying out summary deportations known as ‘pushbacks’ – puncturing or demobilising their boats and dragging them into Turkish territorial waters.
As we bobbed about on the maritime border in the strait of Samos, Lieutenant Emmanoui Schonarauis cheerfully explained some of the strategies used by his crew when they encountered boats along the maritime border, from pretending to be Turkish to moving the boat up and down in front of their boats and other ‘jokes to make them afraid’.
Schonarauis didn’t say so explicitly, but it was obvious that these ‘jokes’ weren’t intended for the coastguards’ amusement. Their purpose was to prevent or deter migrants from entering Greek territory, where they might be able to claim asylum. As a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the Greek government is theoretically committed to providing refugee protection to those who ask for it. But Greece has one of the lowest rates of acceptance for asylum seekers in Europe. Asylum applications are initially assessed by the police themselves, and nearly all applicants are rejected in the first instance. Appealing against rejection is a difficult and expensive process.
Rejected asylum seekers can be held in detention for three months and then issued with deportation orders. But since many of them come from countries without diplomatic representation in Greece, they are usually told to make their own way out of the country within 30 days. Most end up in Athens or in ports on the Adriatic coast, hoping to go to other European countries, where they are likely to be arrested again and put through the same detention and expulsion procedures.
In limbo
Few migrants remain in Greece willingly, but those who succeed in reaching Western Europe are likely to be ensnared by the EU’s Dublin II regulation, which obliges all asylum seekers to make their appeals in their first country of arrival. All migrants detained by Greek police have their fingerprints fed into a European database and those arrested outside Greece can be deported back again to make their applications in a country that hardly ever accepts them.
This dysfunctional system has left tens of thousands of migrants trapped in Greece in a state of permanent illegality. ‘It’s a crazy situation,’ says Toulina Demeli, a refugee lawyer in Lesvos. ‘They’re not allowed to come, they’re not allowed to stay, and they’re not allowed to leave.’
Demeli works at the Villa Azadi (House of Freedom) near Mytilene, a former hospital for the disabled that has been converted into a reception centre for unaccompanied migrant children and adolescents, and offers a temporary refuge to mostly Afghan teenagers who would otherwise be living on the street. But this freedom is strictly relative. As soon as they reach 18, they will be released into a Greek society that has no place for them, and forced to choose between illegality and returning to a war zone where many of them have no parents.
The system has been repeatedly condemned by national and international organisations working with refugees. Until recently, neither Greece nor the EU appeared disposed to do anything about a situation that has effectively turned Greece into a dumping ground for Europe’s unwanted people. In September last year, Greece presented its National Action Plan on Asylum Reform and Migration Management to the European Commission, which pledged a raft of reforms, including the transfer of the asylum process from the police to a civilian authority. Both the UN high commissioner for refugees and the Greek Council for Refugees cautiously welcomed the proposals, and the European commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmström, pledged European financial assistance to implement them.
It remains to be seen whether the EU or the Greek government has the political will to reform a system that has left thousands of migrants marginalised and stranded, and often reduced to bare survival. ‘Europe has to understand that we are a transit country,’ says Zoe Liebetezou, team leader of the Hellenika Rescue team in Lesvos. ‘Nobody wants to stay here – to do what? Even we have problems, so the problem is not for us. The problem is for everybody.’
For the time being, the main priority appears to be to stop people coming across the border and to make life as difficult as possible for those who do. And as the Greek economic crisis continues to bite, the situation isn’t likely to improve. In November last year, units from the EU’s armed Rapid Intervention Border Teams were deployed for the first time on the Evros border.
‘Things are going to be very hard for everyone in Greece over the next few months,’ says Papa Stratis, a Greek Orthodox priest who provides migrants with food, clothing and humanitarian assistance in Lesvos. ‘But they are going to be particularly hard for migrants.’
February 2011
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