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Greece
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Greece blocks thousands of migrants during ‘onslaught’ at border with Turkey

  • Greece said it faced an ‘organised, mass and illegal attempt to violate its borders’ as people flee the crisis in Syria
  • Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said some 18,000 migrants had crossed borders from Turkey into Europe

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A man takes cover behind an umbrella as he throws a mattress in a fire during clashes with Greek police in the buffer zone at Turkey-Greece border, at Pazarkule. Photo: AFP
Reuters
Greek police fired tear gas to push back migrants gathered on its border with Turkey on Saturday, as a crisis over Syria shifted onto the European Union’s doorstep.
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Greece, which has tense relations with its neighbour Turkey at the best of times and was a primary gateway for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, described the situation an “onslaught” and said it would keep migrants out.

“Greece yesterday faced an organised, mass and illegal attempt to violate its borders and it withstood this attempt,” government spokesman Stelios Petsas told reporters. “We averted more than 4,000 attempts of illegal entrance to our land borders.”

Migrants gather at the Turkish side of the closed-off Turkish-Greek border in Edirne, Turkey. Photo: EPA-EFE
Migrants gather at the Turkish side of the closed-off Turkish-Greek border in Edirne, Turkey. Photo: EPA-EFE

“The government will do whatever it takes to protect its borders,” adding that police at the borders would be reinforced.

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Ankara said on Thursday it will no longer contain hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers after an air strike on war-ravaged Idlib in Syria killed 33 Turkish soldiers.

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