EU nations would not be ready to deal with another surge in refugees if a deal with Turkey to limit migrant and refugee arrivals collapses, the Greek minister for migration said on Thursday.
Greek Alternate Minister of Immigration Policy Yiannis Mouzalas said Greece and other European nations would be “severely tested” if the March agreement failed — in the wake of an attempted coup in Turkey and a government crackdown on its alleged sympathizers that has strained relations with the EU.
Mouzalas told Skai television that “no country in Europe is ready” for a repeat of the mass arrival of migrants and refugees that occurred last year.
He made the remarks a day after a government official said that the EU-Turkey deal was holding so far, with daily arrival numbers remaining low.
About 1 million people seeking a better life in Europe’s prosperous heartland arrived on Greece’s eastern Aegean Sea islands from the beginning of last year to March this year, but a series of border closures in Austria and the Balkans — through which the refugees and migrants headed north — combined with the EU-Turkey deal, greatly limited the flow.
Just over 57,000 people are still trapped in Greece, distributed in about 50 state-run camps, and in UN apartments and hotel rooms.
The slow asylum process and often crowded conditions in the camps have sparked tension in several instances. On Thursday, a group of charities expressed concern at what they said was a deteriorating security situation.
In a letter to Mouzalas, the charities warned of a “serious security vacuum” in which deadly stabbings, sexual violence, fights and verbal threats had occurred.
“Clearly, coordinated security protocols for the protection of people living and working in the camps are imperative,” the letter said, requesting a meeting with Mouzalas. “In some sites it is not clear to us who is in the lead for security, police or military, and what we as humanitarian [organizations] can expect.”
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