Lull in refugee deportations to Turkey

By Vasiliki Mitsiniotou

ATHENS

There was a lull in deportations of refugees from Greek islands to Turkey on Tuesday, amid Greek denials that some migrants had gone missing.

The return of refugees from Greece to Turkey in line with an EU-Turkey deal began on Monday; no people were transferred to Turkey today as asylum applications had to be processed first, the Greek authorities said.

Greece began deporting migrants Monday from the island of Lesbos back to Turkey, as part of the deal struck on March 18 to manage the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

“Deportations will not take place every day” said a spokesman for Greece’s Coordinating Body for Refugee Crisis Management on Tuesday. “The number of people and the frequency of the deportations will depend on the asylum applications process, which will speed up once EU specialists arrive in the next two days,” he added.

In response to reports that some would-be immigrants had gone missing, the Coordinating Body tweeted that “No man ‘disappears’ in Greece, nor in Chios, nor anywhere else.”

Earlier on Lesbos, about 100 migrants occupied the entrance of the refugee center at Moria, carrying out a sit-down protest against being returned to Turkey.

According to the Refugee Crisis Management Coordination Body's figures, there are almost 6,000 migrants on the Greek islands, 11,280 migrants at Idomeni at the northern Greek border and 4,761 remain at the port of Piraeus, Athens.

At Idomeni camp on Tuesday, children led a peaceful protest holding white flowers and a banner reading "We are killed silently” reported Greek press agency ANA-MPA.

The Greek authorities are looking to empty both Idomeni camp and the port of Piraeus in the next days.

“By the end of the week Piraeus will be decongested significantly and we’ll start transferring refugees from Idomeni,” Alternate Defense Minister Dimitris Vitsas said in an interview with Mega TV on Monday.

More than 52,000 refugees and migrants were on Greek territory on Tuesday while 225 new arrivals were recorded in the last 24 hours according to Refugee Crisis Management Coordination Body figures.