Greek police fire tear gas on migrants at border with Turkey
Greek police have fired tear gas at migrants who had gathered on its border with Turkey in an attempt to prevent them from entering the country.
The incident came after the Turkish government said it would no longer stop refugees from reaching Europe after more than 30 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike in the Syrian province of Idlib on Thursday.
In response, authorities in Greece, the main gateway to Europe for refugees, deployed police officers to Kastanies, a land border with Turkey, on Friday in an attempt to block the flow of dozens of refugees who had gathered in the area.
On Saturday, the Greek government reiterated its promise to keep migrants out as hundreds were blocked at the Turkish border with Greece.
"The government will do whatever it takes to protect its borders," government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters, adding that in the past 24 hours Greek authorities had averted attempts by 4,000 people to cross.
Live images from Greece's Skai TV on the Turkish side of the northern land border at Kastanies showed Greek riot police firing teargas rounds at migrants.
Media were not permitted to approach the Greek side of the border in the early morning, but the area smelled heavily of teargas.
An estimated 3,000 people had gathered on the Turkish side of the border at Kastanies, according to a Greek government official.
The scenes of refugees heading toward Turkey’s border with Greece has sparked fears of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis when over one million refugees arrived in the EU, most of them fleeing conflict zones in the Middle East and North Africa.
This time around, there are also fears of a new coronavirus outbreak that has reached some European countries from China.
The European Union (EU) and Turkey struck a deal in 2016 under which Turkey would hold back refugees hoping to reach Europe via Turkish territory.
The EU says Ankara had not officially informed the bloc that it had suspended the 2016 deal. The Turkish warning was seen as an attempt to apparently pressure European leaders into backing Turkey’s military campaign in Syria.
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