The Greek coastguard fired warning shots near a boat full of migrants near Rhodes this week, deterring the migrants from reaching the island.
The coastguard on patrol in the area is said to have “fired warning shots at a safe section of the boat” which contained an unknown number of migrants. The warning shots quickly deterred the migrants who slowed their speed and then returned to the Turkish coast.
Turkish officials stated, according to a report from Greek newspaper Kathimerini, that Greek officials had left by the time they came on the scene. They claimed three migrants, two Turks and a Syrian, had been injured by rubber bullets and were then taken to a nearby hospital.
While Greece has seen some success in turning around migrant boasts headed for their territory from Turkey, the United Kingdom has been unable to deter the increasing numbers of boats headed to its shores from France.
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has documented several migrant boat arrivals in the south-east of England over the last several weeks, including releasing footage of migrants being loaded onto coaches at the port of Dover.
Farage commented on the arrivals, saying the migrants “will still stay in the country… picking fruit, working in the rag trade in Leicester or whatever it is. They will move into the illegal slave economy in this country.”
According to a report released last month, the city of Leicester is home to at least 10,000 people working in modern slavery conditions.
A change in policy may be planned by the British government to stop the boats, however. A Whitehall source told The Times that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government was considering adopting a similar policy to Australia, and returning migrant vessels to their last port of origin.
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