An improvised camp has begun to emerge on Saturday along the Turkish-Greek border, where some 3,000 Syrian, Afghan, Iranian and Somali refugees have concentrated in order to reach European territory. In groups, with their blankets or satin, around campfires, they have been installed in the land that normally acts as a buffer zone between the customs of both countries, since the guards who watch the Turkish part of the border have withdrawn the controls. The Greek policemen, parapeted on their side of the border behind fences and barbed wire, have repelled every attempt of passage by firing large quantities of boats with tear gas, which has caused several injuries by bruises.
The news spread Thursday night like wildfire. Facebook, WhatsApp groups, calls from friends. Turkey will not stop refugees who want to escape to European territory. Buses organized to take them free to the border contributed to that feeling: the borders were open. People like Syrian Abdulhakim took it to the letter. And that is why his surprise on Saturday morning when, at his sixties, he has seen himself escaping from tear gas: “Wasn't the door open? Erdogan has said that we could pass, so why do the Greeks shoot at us? ” Abdulhakim could not understand while jogging in a grudging way: he does not see well, hears worse and has a scar on his side, all courtesy of a bombardment of Bachar el Asad. It is from Idlib, the province where this crisis originated whose shock wave shakes the Greek border these days.
"But what kind of humanity is this ?! They are firing gas boats at the children, at the children! ”, Cried a young man, also from Idlib, with his eyes flushed with gas:“ We come from Syria, we have escaped from the bombs ”. At one point, after several barges of gas boats, one has fallen into the Turkish barracks next to the border, and immediately the soldiers have responded with a save of shots in the air in the direction of Greece, which gives an idea of the tension that was breathing on the border. The refugees have begun to shout and applaud thinking, for a moment, that the Turks were firing to defend them. But in this place everyone watches only for their interests.
"Greece has been the object of a massive organized attempt to violate its borders and has resisted it," said Greek Government spokesman Stelios Petsas, after holding an extraordinary Council of Ministers, and explained that the security forces Helenas have avoided "more than 4,000 illegal entries into the country" and that some 13,000 people had concentrated at various points along the more than 200 kilometers of the Greco-Turkish land border. According to the figures of the Greek Government, only 66 people have managed to sneak into Hellenic territory, opening a hole in the fence that protects the ten kilometers in which the Evros River does not make a natural border between the two countries.
On the islands of the Aegean Sea, on the other hand, there has been no extraordinary increase in the arrival of vessels. "We are strengthening our defenses by land and sea, more police forces are being deployed in Evros and 52 ships of the Navy are currently operating on the islands," a Helena Coast Guard spokesman told the Efe agency.
If, on the first day, those who gathered at the Pazarkule-Kastanies pass were mostly young men, families with young children, who were crying and coughing for effect, began to arrive every day since this morning. of tear gas and smoke from the fires. Families like that of Afghan Mohammed, who was looking for irons and scrap in the grove next to the border to try to raise a small shelter for his wife and two babies, wrapped in blankets inside a cart. "Last night was horrible, it rained a lot and the children got soaked," he complains. After more than 24 hours without food and with only drinks that sold at inflated prices a couple of makeshift positions by the local wasps, Acnur and the Red Crescent have begun to distribute food and water packages among the refugees: there were long lines, tumults and the occasional fight because the amount was insufficient before so many people. "What can we do? Mohammed adds. We will wait here until the border opens. All we want is permission to live better. In our country there is no security, in others there is. And here in Turkey the situation is bad. ”
Unlike the 2015 refugee crisis, when those who escaped to Europe were mostly middle-class Syrians with their savings almost intact, in this case they are the poorest. People who have been in Turkey for months or years and barely get enough to survive. Ali, for example, who fled Iran for political reasons: “In Turkey everything, food, rent… is very expensive for us. They do not give us a work permit [only 31,000 refugees have been guaranteed permits] and, therefore, we can only work in black. If you work in black, you get paid less than the minimum wage. So that's why we have come to the border. If we weren't forced by circumstances, we wouldn't do it. ”
Although part of the interviewees speak well of Erdogan and have words of thanks to the Turkish society that has welcomed them, others have realized that things are not as they had been led to believe. Some have returned to Istanbul. Others begin to harbor a certain resentment for feeling used as pawns of the political game.