Explosive influx of migrants on the Greek-Turkish border

As the hours passed, tension rose by a notch in the small village of Kastanies, in the north of the country. Tear gas jets between Greek and Turkish police officers explode at a frantic pace. In the midst of this chaos, hundreds of migrants and refugees, including many families from Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia, who have been promised Europe, are stranded on this 212 km of land border. They protect themselves as best they can from the unbreathable cloud that invades the scene, while others try to break through the barbed wire walls or try to bypass the Greek police buses parked crosswise to prevent passage.

This main border crossing was closed by Greek authorities on Friday afternoon after Ankara’s announcements“Open the valves” of immigration to Europe. Turkish authorities decide after the deaths of 34 of their soldiers in the Idlib region of north-western Syria in air strikes attributed by Ankara to