May 11, 2012
As Greece struggles with political upheaval and deepening economic malaise, its 126-mile-long land border with Turkey has become the flash point for a crisis of another sort—a tide of refugees and illegal immigrants.
Thousands of people fleeing poverty and turmoil in the Middle East, Africa and southern Asia are stepping across Greece's muddy boundary with Turkey each month. The trend is testing government resources, fueling support for ultranationalist groups in blighted urban areas and raising tensions between Athens and the European Union.
Greece's border with Turkey, which runs through the verdant Evros River valley, has become the preferred passage for smugglers and migrants seeking to avoid more perilous sea routes, European officials say.
At times, the area has accounted for as much as 90% of detected illegal border crossings into the EU, according to Frontex, Europe's border agency. Last year, about 55,000 illegal crossings were detected on Greece's land border with Turkey, it says. Greek officials say they expect more than 100,000 migrants to arrive this year.
On a recent morning in this languid border town, a group of nine who said they had crossed into Greece hours earlier wandered down a main street.
"My country is very dangerous," said 18-year-old Somali Abdulkadir Osman as he sat down on a sidewalk, weary from the journey. "Greece," he added, "has peace and stability."
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