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The number of refugees from Syria will have increased threefold by the end of 2014

02 October 2014 / 20:10:49  GRReporter
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Yesterday the Minister of Shipping and the Aegean Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said in parliament that by the end of the year the number of persons crossing the Greek border illegally would have tripled. "We believe that by the end of the year 30,000 illegal immigrants will have crossed our border. In 2013 they numbered 9,000", said Minister Varvitsiotis during a meeting of the committee on production and trade. The topic of the meeting was the report of the Minister of Shipping on the problems of his ministry and the restructuring of the port authority.

Miltiadis Varvitsiotis linked this increase to the developments in Syria, stating: "Every time when the television shows a victim of the Islamists, or every time when there is an announcement of mass graves or mass attacks, there is double pressure on our borders only on the next day". Then Minister Varvitsiotis talked about the cooperation of the Greek and Turkish authorities: "We are conducting operations related to searching and rescuing immigrants and they are very successful, of which we are proud. Although thousands of people have lost their lives in the waters of the Mediterranean, in Greek territorial waters we have really dramatic, albeit few, such cases. At the same time there is a very large number of people to whom we deny access and we ask the Turkish authorities to pick them up, which they do. By the end of the year, we believe that the number of illegal immigrants taken by the Turkish authorities upon our request will reach about 15,000".

A large number of illegal immigrants entering Greece are Syrians. However, few of them want to stay in the country or apply for asylum. Refugees from Syria usually have enough money to stay as long as necessary to allow traffickers to arrange their transfer to Western countries. "Germany, Austria and Sweden are among the countries where they want to go, as there shelter and financial assistance is immediately provided to refugees, and many of them already have families and friends there", says to Kathimerini newspaper a Syrian who has lived in Greece for many years. The transfer takes place in different ways. Some try to go by plane, using false documents, others - by vehicles passing through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, their journey continuing for weeks. While residing in Greece, usually 1-2 months, they live in a rented apartment in the centre of Athens and in other neighbourhoods such as Kallithea and Neos Kosmos.

Meanwhile, data from a shocking study, («Fatal Journeys: Τracking Lives Lost During Migration»), published on Monday by the International Organization for Migration show that the Mediterranean has become a real graveyard for immigrants. According to the Organization, 3,072 people died in the period January-September 2014, trying to cross the Mediterranean in search of a better life. We are talking about the largest number of emigrants who died worldwide. As for the total number of emigrants worldwide who have lost their lives while seeking a better fate for themselves and their families, it exceeds 40,000 since the year 2000, i.e. eight people die per day on the roads of migration.

The organization calls on the governments of all countries to cope with what they describe as "an epidemic of crime and victimization."

"Our message is clear: emigrants should not die", said the Director General of the International Organization for Migration, William Lacy Swing. “It's time to do more than just report the number of victims. It's time to mobilize people to stop this violence against desperate immigrants", he added.

It should be noted that many immigrants die in remote areas of the world, as these cases are not reported. Also no global organization today is responsible for the systematic tracking of the number of deaths, so the horrifying data of the International Organization for Migration are probably much worse.

The study of the organization, consisting of 200 pages, started after October 2013, when more than 400 migrants lost their lives in two shipwrecks near the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Tags: illegal immigrants refugees International Organization for Migration data
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