Greece to speed up migrant transfer after Turkey deal

ATHENS: Greece will speed up the relocation of thousands of migrants from its overcrowded islands to the mainland before the onset of winter after reaching a deal with Turkey, a key ally in helping to tackle Europe´s migration crisis, government sources said on Monday.

Athens persuaded Ankara last week to accept migrant returns from the mainland and not just from the Aegean islands as previously agreed under a 2016 EU-Turkey pact, one source told AFP.

The new agreement — reached during a strained two-day visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — aims to reduce the more than 15,000 people packed into refugee camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros, another source said.

The camps are filled to triple their capacity, forcing many migrants to sleep in tents and creating tensions with locals. Over a million people, mainly fleeing the civil war in Syria, crossed to Greece from Turkey in 2015 with the onset of the bloc´s worst migration crisis since World War II.

Last March, Ankara had pledged to take back illegal migrants landing on Greek islands in exchange for sweeteners including financial aid and eased EU visa rules for Turkish citizens. The deal, criticised by rights groups, sharply reduced the number of migrants trying to cross the Aegean Sea. However, the pace of migrant returns to Turkey fell dramatically after a state crackdown on civil servants that followed an attempted coup against Erdogan last year.

Until now, Greece has only been relocating populations deemed “vulnerable” — non-accompanied minors, single parents and victims of torture — to the mainland, exempt under the EU-Turkey pact.