The first migrants to be
deported from Greece as part of a controversial new EU plan to tackle
the migration crisis have landed on Turkish soil.
Three boats carrying 202 people departed in the early hours of the morning from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios.
Migrants
on board the first ferry were escorted ashore by Turkish police in the
port town of Dikilion Monday morning, as authorities set up a tarp to
prevent gathered media from seeing on board. A second boat docked
shortly afterward.
Greek
authorities said there were 136 migrants on board the two boats from
Lesbos - the majority of them from Pakistan, with others from Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh and India, as well as two Syrians who had returned
voluntarily.
The 66 migrants on board the boat from Chios included 42 Afghans, authorities said.
According
to Greek officials, the migrants had not applied for asylum. A Turkish
official said Turkey has agreed to accept up to 500 migrants per day.
Protesters
opposed to the deportations also gathered at Dikili's port. One held a
sign reading: "Refugees welcome. This is your home."
The
migrants are the first to be deported under the auspices of a
contentious "one in, one out" deal struck between the European Union and
Turkey last month.
Under the terms of the deal, anyone who crosses into Greece illegally after March 20 will be sent back to Turkey.
For
every Syrian sent back to Turkey, a vetted Syrian refugee will go from
Turkey to Europe to be resettled, although the maximum number is capped
at 72,000 people. In return, the EU will give Turkey billions in funding
to help it provide for the migrants within its borders, and grant
various political concessions.
Speaking
to reporters in Dikili on Monday, Mustafa Toprak, governor of Izmir
province, revealed that Syrian migrants who are deported to Turkey would
not be sent by ship like the first group of deportees, but would be
flown to the southern city of Adana.
From there, they would be sent to camps throughout Turkey's southeast, where the country shares a border with Syria.
"For
every Syrian transported by plane to Adana then taken to camps, the same
number of Syrians will be sent to Europe," he said.
The
plan was agreed upon last month as Europe struggles to respond to the
largest migration crisis since World War II. More than 1 million people
made "irregular arrivals" inside Europe's borders in 2015 alone, many of
them displaced bythe Syrian civil war.
About 2.7 million Syrian refugees are registered in Turkey.
Whether
the agreement will be successful in stemming the tide of people into
the EU remains to be seen, and migrant routes are likely to shift.
A
backlog in Greece has built up after its neighbor Macedonia and other
countries along the migration path into Western Europe began blocking
access to migrants.
The new rules may divert the thousands fleeing their home countries farther west to nations such as Italy.
Thousands of refugees stuck on border as new rules take hold
On
Friday, a report released by Amnesty International condemned the EU
agreement and said Turkey has been forcibly sending people back to
Syria, constituting a violation of international law -- something Turkey
denies.
The
report said it found many cases of large-scale returns from the Turkish
province of Hatay, and called it an "open secret in the region."
"In
their desperation to seal their borders, EU leaders have willfully
ignored the simplest of facts: Turkey is not a safe country for Syrian
refugees and is getting less safe by the day," said John Dalhuisen,
Amnesty International's director for Europe and Central Asia.
A statement from the Turkish foreign ministry said the Amnesty International report "does not reflect the truth."
The
statement said that Turkey had been observing an "open door policy" for
five years with regard to refugees, and complying with the principle of
no returns.
Culled CNN
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