Greek Interior Minister Gerhard Karner has revealed that around 1,300 smugglers were arrested by Greek authorities, and over 250,000 migrants were prevented from crossing the Evros border river into Turkey in 2022.
According to him, the Greek border police are doing an essential job in protecting the external border of the EU, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“The better the EU’s external borders are protected, also by technical barriers such as fences, the fewer border controls are required between the individual member states,” he also noted.
As InfoMigrants reports, last year, about a third of all registered migrants crossed into Greece through the land border with Turkey at the Evros River.
In August, the Greek government decided to expand the fence along the northeastern border with Turkey by 80 kilometres, as well as introduce new electronic monitoring equipment. The country has already built a 40-kilometre or 25-mile wall in the Evros River area. Now the government plans to expand it by 220 kilometres.
In May, the Greek government added another 80 km to its 35 km wall due to an increase in the number of migrants arriving from the border with Turkey, following tensions between Athens and Ankara.
In this regard, the Minister of Citizen Protection of Greece, Takis Theodorikakos, said that only in August, 40,000 illegal immigrants tried to cross. Also, the Greek Police stopped the entry of 150,000 illegal immigrants.
Moreover, it is assumed that the border with Turkey will be completely closed until the end of the project. Meanwhile, other plans include increasing the Greek border patrol force with additional boats as well as aircraft for its coast guard in the eastern Aegean Sea.
Greece is repeatedly accusing Turkey that migrants have been given a choice by the Turkish authorities to return to Syria or other countries of origin or to enter Greece illegally.
The data provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) also show that in 2022 more than 18,000 people entered Greece irregularly, a number twice higher than in 2021, when a little more than 9,000 immigrants arrived in this country.
In these border regions, migrant smuggling is a very profitable and highly organised business, and many smuggling networks also transport thousands of migrants to Europe every year.