How Greek island Lesbos stopped migrant invasion using controversial yet effective ‘pushback' deterrent hailed by locals

The Sun

17 hours ago

AS the influx of illegal migrants to Britain's shores shows no sign of abating, something very different is happening 2,000 miles away on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Here, just seven miles across the Mytilini Strait from Turkey, the number of crossings has shrunk, thanks to a controversial but extremely effective deterrent.
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At its peak ten years ago, up to 3,500 migrants a day landed on Lesbos, having made the perilous journey across the Aegean Sea in makeshift boats and cheap dinghies.
But now, thanks to Greece's robust policy of 'pushbacks' — intercepting the boats and returning them to Turkish waters — that number has plummeted to just 1,700 so far this year.
Aegean Boat Report, a Norwegian non-governmental organisation that monitors migrant flows in the area, says Turkey also regularly intercepts boats before they reach the Greek Islands and returns them to the mainland.
Campaigners have slammed the practice, claiming it is illegal, but locals say the crackdown has saved the scenic holiday retreat from economic disaster — and most importantly, it has saved lives.
Fisherman Thanassis Marmarinos recalls the horror of seeing the bodies of migrants in the sea before Greece's hardline anti- immigration government was elected in 2019.
Floating corpses
He said: 'It was extremely bad before, I can't imagine it being any worse.
'Every day there were thousands of migrants crossing.
'For five months I couldn't make any money because I would spend all my time trying to stop them drowning.
'People were asking for help and they were dying in the water, so I had no other option.
'I saw the corpses floating in the sea with my own eyes.
'In 2015 there was only one coastguard ship and they were overwhelmed, so I and four other fishermen did what we could to help save lives.
'The smugglers were charging about 2,000 euros per person for the 90-minute sailing to Lesbos.
'But to save money they were giving the migrants cheap, Chinese-made boats that had two sections to their engines — one full of fuel, the other full of water, so they would stop working halfway.'
In 2015, triggered by war and political unrest in the Middle East and Africa, the refugee crisis had one of its deadliest years for small-boat crossings.
A total of 805 people drowned as they tried to cross what is dubbed the Eastern Mediterranean corridor by Frontex, the European Union's border and coastguard agency.
An incredible 800,000 landed in Greece the same year, 60 per cent of them reaching Lesbos, according to the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency.
Since then, Frontex has expanded hugely, from a small administrative office in Warsaw to the EU's biggest agency, with 10,000 armed guards backed by helicopters, drones and ships and with an annual budget of more than a billion euros.
Another six billion euros has been paid to Turkey to boost border security, and unlike Britain's £500million three-year deal with France, it has led to a sharp fall in people-smuggling.
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Last year 54,000 small-boat migrants reached the Greek Islands from Turkey, and as we reported last week, Frontex has recorded a further 29 per cent fall in irregular migration through its Eastern Mediterranean border in the first quarter of this year.
Fewer crossings have led to a fall in fatalities of more than 75 per cent since 2015, with 191 asylum seekers reported missing or dead in the same area last year.
This is despite the Greek government banning charities and individuals from helping small-boat migrants while they are at sea — another key difference from the UK, where 1,371 people crossing the Channel were rescued by the RNLI last year.
On Lesbos, new arrivals are not given a hotel room, and currently around 1,100 people are being housed in containers at the Closed Control Access Centre on the north east coast, where the provisions are basic.
Sometimes when refugees reach here, they catch them, put them on a boat and drop them in the middle of the ocean on a life raft.
Joaquin O'Ryan
This is in contrast to two years ago, when up to 5,000 people had their claims processed there, while 20,000 were held in the island's old Moria 'camp of shame' before it was destroyed by fire in 2020.
Fisherman Thanassis, 72, is one of the many islanders who believe that the election of the hardline New Democracy party in 2019, when Kyriakos Mitsotakis became Greece 's Prime Minister, was a turning point.
He said: 'Everything changed when New Democracy was elected and they started sending the migrants back to Turkey.
'After that it became a bad deal to pay to cross to Greece, because you would end up back where you started.'
When The Sun visited this week, there was not a single sea arrival on Lesbos, despite the Aegean being perfectly calm.
Key to the change has been the decision to redesignate Turkey as a 'safe third country' for asylum-seekers.
But charities insist the pushbacks are illegal, and Frontex is currently investigating alleged human rights violations by the Greek coastguard.
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A statement by Aegean Boat Report said: 'Systematic human rights violations at the Greek sea border have been ongoing for over five years.
'Almost 100,000 people have been illegally and violently removed from Greek territory and pushed back towards Turkey, over 1,000 people have been killed in these illegal operations.'
Joaquin O'Ryan, of humanitarian group Europe Cares, which provides meals and activities for people living in the CCAC camp, said: 'These pushbacks are illegal but it's a systemic process — they are not being carried out by just one person — so they can do whatever they want, basically.
'Sometimes when refugees reach here [Lesbos], they catch them, put them on a boat and drop them in the middle of the ocean on a life raft.'
The Lesbos coastguard now has around half a dozen frigates, some supplied by Frontex, and most of the islanders we spoke to support the tough action being taken by the authorities.
Waiter Kristos Condeli, 60, said: 'Tourism was completely destroyed for a few years after 2015.
'The cruise ships stopped coming here because they didn't want passengers to see corpses floating in the sea.
'There were thousands of migrants coming here and some of them resorted to stealing to survive.
'It got to the point that it was no longer safe to leave your bag in your car as someone would smash the window and steal it.
'UK could learn a lot'
'With no tourists, there was very little work for waiters.
'I had to relocate to Corfu to make a living and I've only recently been able to move back.
'The number of migrants crossing is down significantly in recent years and it's all thanks to the coastguard and Frontex, who are doing a fantastic job.
'The UK could learn a lot from the things done here.'
Receptionist Maria Dimitriou works at the island's Molyvos Hotel.
She fears the migrant problem has been pushed further south to Crete, where 6,500 migrants from Libya in North Africa have landed in the last six months.
She said: 'Before the crisis started, we had one of our best years for tourism.
'The hotels were full of visitors from Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and the UK.
'When the migrants first started coming, the tourists said they wanted to help them.
'But the next year no one came back.
'I can only guess that they were put off by all the TV reports and they didn't want to risk seeing a dead body when they were on holiday.
'The drop in numbers almost destroyed the tourism industry in Lesbos.
'If it wasn't for weekend visitors from Turkey, this island would already be dead.
'In 2015 the refugees were everywhere.
'We felt sorry for the people from Syria, who were escaping a genuine war zone.
'After that, they were from everywhere and tell me, how can you be called a refugee when you are from Pakistan?
'The tourism industry is getting back to normal now and this hotel is close to full capacity for the next few months.
'But everyone is worried that, given what is happening in Iran and Palestine, the situation might get worse again.'