Greek police and military officers have prevented nearly 7,000 migrants from illegally crossing the border from Turkey in the Evros area over the past 24 hours, the Greek in.gr news portal reported on Thursday, citing government sources
ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th March, 2020) Greek police and military officers have prevented nearly 7,000 migrants from illegally crossing the border from Turkey in the Evros area over the past 24 hours, the Greek in.gr news portal reported on Thursday, citing government sources.
According to the news portal, between 06:00 a.m. [04:00 GMT] on Wednesday and 06:00 a.m. on Thursday, 24 people were arrested in the area, most of them from Afghanistan and Pakistan, while a total of 6,955 people were prevented from illegally entering the Greek territory.
In general, since early Saturday, over 34,700 illegal border-crossing attempts were prevented and 244 people were arrested.
The situation with migrants at the Greek-Turkish border escalated in late February after Ankara announced it had opened its border with the European Union to migrants and refugees following the recent increase in tensions in the Syrian province of Idlib. Soon after, thousands of migrants rushed to Turkey's border with Greece and Bulgaria to try to get into Europe.
According to Turkey, one of the reasons for opening its borders to the EU was the lack of assistance from the bloc in dealing with the flow of migrants. Under the 2016 agreement between the two, Ankara promised to restrain the flow of migrants into the bloc, with Brussels pledging to provide funds to help Turkey care for the refugees.
