New York Times
January 31, 2011
On a chilly night recently, a half-dozen young men huddled in the shadows of the tiny train station here, stamping their feet to stay warm, waiting, though they had no money, to board a train for Athens.
Some were from Morocco. Others from Algeria. All said they had flown into Istanbul only a few days before, taken a bus to the Greek-Turkish border and simply walked into Greece, crossing at night through fields planted with potatoes and garlic.
“A friend told me how to do it,” said Yousef Silimani, 23, who like the others was neatly, even fashionably dressed. “My feet were frozen. But it was really easy.”
Ten years ago bodies were washing up on Spanish beaches as traffickers drove overloaded, rickety boats near the shore. There they forced immigrants, many of whom did not know how to swim, to jump into the sea and scramble for safety. A few years later traffickers were focused on Italy’s coastline and the Greek islands.
But after security in those areas was reinforced with patrol boats and helicopters — and Italy and Spain signed repatriation agreements with North African countries — immigrants and their traffickers adapted.
Now it is the border between Greece and Turkey, including a 7.5-mile stretch just a few miles from here, that has become the latest crossing point for immigrants seeking entry into the European Union. In 2009, police officials say, about 3,500 immigrants came over the nearby border. In 2010, more than 10 times that many — around 36,000 — arrived.
Twenty-one drowned in the muddy, fast-moving Evros River, which marks most of the border between Greece and Turkey.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment