More than 10,000 migrants, mostly from Syria, other Middle Eastern states and Afghanistan, have reached Turkey’s land borders with EU states Greece and Bulgaria since Ankara said last Thursday it would stop keeping them on its territory.
According to witnesses, Greek and Turkish police fired tear gas into crowds caught in the no-man’s land between the two borders.
Further south, at least 1,000 migrants have reached Greece’s eastern Aegean islands since Sunday morning, Greek police say.
“This is an invasion,” Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis told Skai TV on Monday.
Greek officials have accused Turkey of orchestrating a coordinated effort to drive migrants across the frontier.
One Greek policeman accused Turkish soldiers at the Kastanies border gate of “giving cutters” to migrants to cut holes in the fence to get through.
Some migrants camped near the border had erected makeshift tents or built bonfires to stay warm.
“We’re going to keep waiting here because we left our homes. Those of us who had homes, who had things, we sold them and got money for them. If we want to go back we will sleep in the streets,” said Jamal Kassar, a Syrian migrant.
“There are people who also gave up their (Turkish) identity cards. What can we do, we’re stuck here, we can’t go back home and we can’t cross (the border).”
A Greek government spokesman said a video circulating on social media showing a young man with wounds to the head laid out on the ground near the border was “fake news”. Two Turkish security sources said the Syrian man had died of his wounds.
“We call upon everyone to use caution when reporting news that furthers Turkish propaganda,” spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Twitter.
The EU’s chief executive, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed sympathy on Monday with Turkey over the conflict in Syria but said its decision to let refugees and migrants cross into Eurpoe “cannot be an answer or solution”.
Greece has declared a state of “maximum” alert to protect its borders and has suspended asylum applications by those who entered the country illegally.
The UNHCR said Monday that Greece had no legal justification for suspending asylum procedures.
Greek asylum official Manos Logothetis said there has been “a substantial increase” in the number of arrivals on Aegean islands.
“We have gone from an average of 200-300 last week to 500-800 in recent days.”
Over a 24-hour period from Sunday morning to Monday morning, around 1,300 people landed on Lesbos, Chios, Leros, Kos and Samos, the five islands that have centres to register asylum seekers, he said.
The Greek press agency ANA said around 200 migrants had arrived on Lesbos so far on Monday.
