Greece’s relevant migration and asylum minister on Tuesday again pointed to neighboring Turkey and a smattering of NGOs for a spike in the number of Somali nationals being ferried over to a handful of Greek isles from the opposite Turkish coast.
Minister Notis Mitarachis charged that specific NGOs are, in fact, paying for Somali nationals’ air travel and visa, in order to bring them by plane to Istanbul, before overland transport from the Bosporus metropolis to the “mustering points” on the western Anatolia coast. The last part of the journey is carried out by migrant smugglers, who illegally ferry the would-immigrants to Greek isles.
Visas for entry into Turkey, the Greek minister said, are related to healthcare or study, but are merely a ruse used by criminal gangs.
“These transports must be stopped with every legal means. We do not want our country to become the (illegal) entry point of Europe,” he said.
Greece has recently come under criticism by certain quarters in Europe for alleged “pushbacks” of migrants boats carrying third country nationals towards Greek isles, and after the latter are “pushed forward” by migrant smugglers — and, account to counter-criticism, by shady NGOs and the official Turkey state itself.
The allegation of illegal “pushbacks” is also a standing leitmotif of “no border” activists, NGOs and left-leaning media.
In comments to foreign correspondents, Mitarachis pointed to continued Turkish provocations in the eastern Aegean, with the latest expression being the heightened trafficking of Somali nationals. He added that Athens has asked the European Commission and the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees to intervene with Ankara so that the systemic trafficking of people stops, as this illegal practice also costs lives.
“Currently there are between 2,000 to 3,000 migrants on the Turkish west coast,” he said, while adding that out of the 214 illegal migrants that reached Lesvos recently, 142 were from Somalia.
The increasingly autocratic and now unabashedly Islamist administration has cultivated very close relations with the shaky Somali government mostly centered in Mogadishu, including military assistance and even the dispatch of “advisers” to the strife-plagued Horn of Africa country.
These bilateral ties, in fact, include direct flights from Somalia to Istanbul, whereby numerous would-be migrants and professed asylum-seekers arrive on Europe’s external borders by plane.
