VIDEO-Protests Ahead Of Migrant Deportations

Greece is preparing to start deporting migrants back to Turkey despite mounting concerns about how they will be treated once returned.

It comes after MPs in Athens voted to back draft legislation, fast-tracked through parliament, to allow the returns to start as soon as Monday.

The controversial operation will apply to those who arrived on Greek islands after 20 March.

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Several Greek officials said deportations are likely to start from the island of Lesbos, using buses to take people from camps to chartered vessels.

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They are also to take place with a heavy security escort - with one police minder for every migrant.

The imminent deportations, backed by the European Union following its recent agreement with Turkey, triggered violence at detention camps in the country.

Authorities on the island of Chios said several hundred people forced their way out of an overcrowded camp and staged a protest in the island's main town.

It followed overnight clashes between Syrian and Afghan detainees that left five people injured.

The United Nations has urged Greece and Turkey to provide further safeguards for asylum seekers before the returns begin.

It said that conditions are worsening by the day for more than 4,000 people being held on Greek islands.

It comes as residents in the Turkish town of Dikili also staged protests against setting up registration desks and building refugee camps in their town for those sent back to the country from Europe. 

Human rights group Amnesty International, which has strongly opposed the EU-Turkey agreement , said in a report it had evidence of Turkish authorities rounding up Syrians and sending them back across the border to their conflict-torn country.

The group said Turkey has been expelling around 100 men, women and children nearly daily since mid-January.

Greek officials did not respond to the criticism directly, but insisted the rights of detained asylum seekers were being protected.

The clashes on Chios were the latest in a series of violent clashes at shelters and gathering points across Greece, where more than 52,000 migrants and refugees are stranded following EU-backed Balkan border closures.

More than 11,000 of those stranded remain camped out at the Greek-Macedonian border, ignoring calls by the government to move voluntarily to organised shelters.

Many say they have heard conditions in other camps are worse, and they fear what they might find if they are forced to move.

 

http://news.sky.com/story/1671556/protests-ahead-of-migrant-deportations