Authorities in Greece said Tuesday they detained 107 migrants in two separate operations near the island of Crete, as an official attributed an increase in people trying to cross the eastern Mediterranean to conflicts in the Middle East.
Greece says migrant arrivals have increased by up to 35 per cent since fall 2023 amid rising numbers setting sail from the Libyan coast.
Smugglers ferrying migrants from Turkey to Greece’s eastern islands have in two cases adopted the new and dangerous tactic of knocking some passengers off their speedboats into the sea to avoid capture by pursuing coast guards, Greek authorities say.
The crew of a Greek coast guard vessel opened fire on a speedboat smuggling migrants that rammed into a patrol boat.
Authorities on the Greek island of Crete detained 76 migrants early Tuesday after they arrived on three boats as smugglers seek new routes.
A Greek border guard was shot while patrolling an area of the Greek-Turkish border where undocumented migrants seek to enter the EU.
The government of Greece is planning to put illegal migrants to work on public works projects to update the nation’s infrastructure.
Greek authorities said Sunday they had safely rescued 48 migrants from a rudderless inflatable boat off the island of Lesbos.
The Greek coast guard said that a ship that went down off the country’s south coast left more than 500 migrants presumed drowned.
Five police officers accused of assisting human traffickers to facilitate the entry of at least 100 migrants into Greece have been arrested.
The death toll from a migrant boat sinking off the Greek resort island of Mykonos has tripled to nine after another six bodies were found.
A sailboat carrying migrants hit rocks off the coast of southern Greece and sank on Friday, leading to the deaths of at least seven people.
The British government has revealed it is flying in asylum seekers directly from Greece, while record numbers of illegal immigrants continue to arrive on UK shores in boats.
In a move reminiscent of the notorious large scale migrant camps in Greece, the Home Office has commandeered a former army barracks to house some 400 migrants in Kent as record-breaking waves of migrants cross the English Channel.
President Erdogan of Turkey said that there is “no difference” between Greek forces trying to protect the nation’s border and the Nazis.
Turkey’s Erdogan walked out of a meeting with EU officials after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the migrant crisis.
The Islamist president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called on Greece to open its borders to allow thousands of migrants to pass through the country into other European nations.
Thousands of protesters marched in Germany calling for open borders and for the European Union to allow thousands of migrants to flow into the bloc from Turkey.
Turkish people-smugglers are operating freely along the Greek border, charging migrants just £11 to get past Greek border patrol guards.
Greece conducted a military drill with live ammunition along the Turkish border, as waves of migrants attempt to cross the border after President Erdogan’s decision to ‘open the gates’ for migrants to cross into Europe. Ahead of a visit from
Greece says it is suspending an emergency plan to build migrant detention camps on Greek islands near the Turkish coast.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The transfer of migrants from overcrowded camps on the islands to the Greek mainland continued over the weekend, with authorities saying 415 arrived at the port of Eleusis west of Athens Saturday afternoon and another 380 expected around noon Sunday.
Andrej Babiš has refused to bow to pressure demanding the Czech Republic resettle “war orphans” living in Greek camps, insisting that his responsibility as Prime Minister was to Czech orphans.
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Authorities in northern Greece have rescued 60 Iraqi migrants, including 27 children, found walking along a major highway after a smuggling truck dumped them far from their destination.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has suspended a bilateral agreement with Greece allowing Athens to return migrants to Turkey, in retaliation for Greece’s failure to extradite eight Turkish officers who fled to Greece after Turkey’s failed 2016 military coup.
An angry mob on the Greek Island of Lesbos has attempted to overturn a police bus after protests – against European Union (EU) migration policies and the arrival of the Greek Prime Minister – turned ugly.
European Union countries are taking in far more migrants from Turkey than required by the migrant agreement, with Germany taking in more than a third of the migrants.
The migrant deal between the European Union (EU) and Turkey may be failing over 350 migrants have arrived in Greece in three days, up considerably from previous weeks.
Despite attempts by the European Union (EU) to redistribute some 160,000 migrants from Greece and Italy, the political bloc has so far only managed to resettle less than 10 per cent of their target.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities are investigating the deaths of three migrants over the past week in a camp on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Lesbos. Two of the men, an Egyptian and a Syrian national, were found
ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey on Friday threatened to scrap a migrant readmission deal with Athens after the Greek Supreme Court refused to return eight suspects allegedly linked to the failed July coup.
Austria’s increasingly hard-line Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has made it known that unless Turkey reforms on issues of freedom and human rights, Austria will block any European Union membership negotiations. The Foreign Minister announced his intentions to block Turkish membership talks
Hundreds of migrants arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos have claimed that they came from a “dissolved” migrant camp in north-west Turkey, and Greek port authorities allege the Turkish coastguard that monitors the Aegean Sea border has “disappeared”.
Greek intelligence has disclosed that the Turkish government plans to allow 3,000 migrants to leave their shores every day to head for Greece.