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Greece wants EU immigration patrols on its Turkish border

25 October 2010, 09:56 CET
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(ATHENS) - Greece wants the European Union to deploy its immigration patrols on the Greek-Turkish border where a massive influx of undocumented migrants is recorded in recent months, a minister said on Sunday.

"A mass influx is noted daily on the Greek land border with Turkey by third-country nationals attempting to illegally enter the country with the aim of accessing other EU countries," said the office of Citizen's Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis, who is responsible for the police.

The Greek government wants the EU to immediately dispatch its "rapid border intervention teams" with support from European border agency Frontex whose participation has lately helped stem a similar migration flow by sea.

Letters to that effect have been sent to EU internal affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem and the chairman of the bloc's internal affairs council Annemie Turtelboom, Papoutsis' office said.

"The increasing pressure of illegal migration flows on Greek borders is a clearly European problem that demands a European solution," Papoutsis said.

The UN this week also called on EU states to do more to lighten the migrant burden on Greece, which it said has created "catastrophic" conditions for refugees.

In 2008, 50 percent of all arrests of so-called illegals in the European Union took place in Greece but in the first eight months of 2010, it was 90 percent, according to the world body.

Tighter borders and regulations have diverted many refugees from Spain, Malta and Italy towards Greece, over-extending Greek authorities.

Frontex said more than three-quarters of the 40,977 people intercepted while clandestinely immigrating into the EU in the first half of 2010 entered through Greece, mainly coming from Turkey.

The effects are also felt in Greece's overcrowded detention centres where conditions are "inhuman", United Nations special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak said this week.


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