ATHENS, Greece: Bitter cold, biting winds and rough winter seas have
done little to stem the seemingly endless flow of desperate people
fleeing war or poverty for what they hope will be a brighter, safer
future in Europe. As 2016 dawns, boatloads continue to reach Greek
shores and thousands trudge across Balkan fields and country roads
heading north.
More than a million people reached Europe in 2015 in
the continent’s largest refugee influx since the end of World War II — a
crisis that has tested European unity and threatened the vision of a
borderless continent. Nearly 3,800 people are estimated to have drowned
in the Mediterranean last year, making the journey to Greece or Italy in
unseaworthy vessels packed far beyond capacity.
The European Union
has pledged to bolster patrols on its external borders and quickly
deport economic migrants, while Turkey has agreed to crack down on
smugglers operating from its coastline. But those on the front lines of
the crisis say the coming year promises to be difficult unless there is a
dramatic change.
Greece has borne the brunt of the exodus, with more
than 850,000 people reaching the country’s shores, nearly all arriving
on Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast.
“The (migrant) flows
continue unabated. And on good days, on days when the weather isn’t bad,
they are increased,” Ioannis Mouzalas, Greece’s minister responsible
for migration issues, told The Associated Press. “This is a problem and
shows that Turkey wasn’t able — I’m not saying that they didn’t want —
to respond to the duty and obligation it had undertaken to control the
flows and the smugglers from its shores.”
Europe’s response to the
crisis has been fractured, with individual countries, concerned about
the sheer scale of the influx, introducing new border controls aimed at
limiting the flow. The problem is compounded by the reluctance of many
migrants’ countries of origin, such as Pakistan, to accept forcible
returns.
“If measures are not taken to stop the flows from Turkey and
if Europe doesn’t solve the problems of the returns as a whole, it will
be a very difficult year,” Mouzalas warned.
Along the Balkan migrant
route, an undetermined number of men, women and children considered
economic migrants have found themselves stranded, their hopes of
reaching prosperous northern EU countries dashed by recent border
closures. Greece, with thousands of miles of coastline, is the only
country that cannot feasibly block people from entering without breaking
international laws about rescuing those in distress at sea.
“It’s a
bad sign, this unabated flow that continues,” Mouzalas said. “It creates
difficulties for us, as the borders have closed for particular
categories of people and there is a danger they will be trapped here.”
The number of those estimated to be stuck in Greece runs in the thousands. Mohammed Abusaid is one of them.
A
baby-faced 27-year-old Moroccan electrician, Abusaid left home with
dreams of finding work in Germany or even the United States.
Like
tens of thousands before him, he made his way with a group of friends to
Turkey and then braved the short but perilous sea crossing to the Greek
island of Lesbos in early November.
From there, they headed north
only to discover the Macedonian border was only open to those from
war-wracked Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq. The young Moroccans now spend
their nights huddling for warmth in a tent beneath a straggly tree
outside Athens’ old airport.
“I’m living here like a tramp. But I’m
not a tramp,” Abusaid said quietly. “I’m single, my parents are old. I
want to look for work. We don’t cause trouble, we just want to work.”
But
Abusaid finds himself trapped in a country wracked by a five-year
financial crisis that has left unemployment hovering around 25 percent.
Desperate, cold and hungry, two of his friends have opted for the
voluntary repatriation scheme offered by the International Organization
for Migration and are heading home in early January. Abusaid says he’s
pondering following suit.
But he still hopes to make it to northern
Europe for a better life, and dreams of America. “I wish I could fly
like a bird and go there.”
Inside the old airport complex, a shelter
has been set up in a former Olympic Games hockey venue but access is
limited to vulnerable groups, particularly after theft, looting and
fights were reported among groups of men.
“We realize it is very
difficult for the new government to handle all these elevated numbers,”
said Chrysanthi Protogerou, director of the Greek Council for Refugees
aid organization. “We were not well prepared and we continue not being
well prepared. . What we would like to propose is to have better
coordination, to make an even bigger effort, because the problem is
becoming huge.”
Battered on the one side by a massive wave of
desperate people risking their lives to reach its islands and on the
other by border restrictions, Greece is struggling.
“It’s a situation
to which we are being subjected without bearing any responsibility for
it and without being able to control it,” said Mouzalas. “Whatever
measures we take here, if on the Turkish side the smugglers increase the
flows, we can’t cope. . We have a vast sea and countless islands. If a
ground intervention occurs in Syria, we can’t deal with this wave of
refugees.”
The problem, the beleaguered minister said, “is happening
in Greece but it is a European problem and the solution must be a
European one.”
Nearly all new arrivals are aiming for wealthy
northern European countries, with Germany and Sweden the favorites. Both
stood out for trying to maintain a generous welcome even as numbers
swelled, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel famously proclaiming “we
will manage it.”
Germany received about 1 million asylum-seekers this year and Sweden more than 150,000.
However,
toward the end of the year even those two shifted course. Germany
introduced border checks in September and Sweden in November. Sweden is
now taking steps to keep people from even reaching the border and as of
Monday will require passengers boarding Sweden-bound trains in
neighboring Denmark to show ID. The crisis has strained relations
between the Scandinavian neighbors.
Further down the migrant trail,
refugees trickle steadily into Macedonia and Serbia, although
authorities say numbers have decreased “drastically.”
In a Serbian
refugee center in Presevo near the Macedonian border, a baby wearing a
yellow cap and oversized gloves blinked in the winter sun while a woman
slowly combed a girl’s long, black hair.
Although trains and buses are still crowded, Macedonia’s border controls seem to be working.
“The
number of migrants going through has drastically declined,” said
Presevo camp deputy manager Slobodan Savovic. “That means the numbers
have more than halved when compared to September, when we had as much as
10,000 people per day.”
