Mouzalas: Tens of thousands of immigrants will be trapped in Greece
Athens, January 8, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency
In the dramatic confession that most people who cross over to Greece from the Turkish coast are 50% illegal immigrants and 50% refugees, when two months ago the ratio was 80% refugees and 20% illegal immigrants, proceeded the Deputy Minister of Migration Policy Yannis Mouzalas.
According to him the possibility to close the border for everyone is real and that is one of the reasons of the continued flow of people to Greece. The second reason according to Mouzalas is the continued existence in Turkey of circuits, which supply undocumented refugees to the flow.
For immigrants there are three possibilities, Mouzalas stressed speaking to SKAI television, having said that "we are hosting some of the refugees and follow the road of relocation":
– to seek asylum,
– to understand that there is no future here and request repatriation
– to have a forced repatriation, but this has many difficulties because of the disharmony in the response of countries like Pakistan.
According to Mouzalas, Greece still "has no practical proof that Turkey is trying to stop traffickers".
He described finally the real danger of the borders closing and causing refugees and migrants to become trapped in Greece after the change of attitude of European countries on the management of their borders.
"The natural flow of things is for a manageable number of refugees to become trapped in Greece of about a few tens of thousands. When the border close and the message reaches Morocco that they can not pass to Europe, but are detained and repatriated, then the flow will stop", Mouzalas concluded.
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