Greece Erects Massive Concrete Blocks On Border To Halt Migrant Wave From Turkey

As the rest of the globe is busy locking down borders amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Turkey has reportedly kept it migrant wave to the EU corridor open, resulting in continued chaos at Greek-Turkey border points, as desperate asylum seekers try any way possible to gain EU entry. 

This now includes not just an ongoing militarized response on the Greek side to keep thousands from crossing illegally, but reportedly now erecting huge concrete blocks at key land crossings.

The completely shuttered border crossings with Turkey are beginning to resemble war zones akin to WWI trenches and fortifications:

“Greece on Friday placed 5-foot concrete blocks at its Kastanies border crossing with Turkey to stop the entry of asylum seekers,” Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reports.

For weeks since Erdogan said he had in an act of retribution aimed at uncooperative EU states ‘opened the gates’ on hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees from Idlib seeking entry into Europe, the border situation has seen running battles between throngs of migrants and Greek border guards. 

See the massive concrete blocks being put in place in the footage below, also fortified with barbed wire: 

Turkish media and officials have played up the ‘violent’ response by Greek security while downplaying and ignoring Turkey’s leaders actively facilitating the confrontations: 

In the two weeks since asylum seekers were able to reach the border, nearly 2,500 have been wounded by Greek border guards who use disproportionate violence.

Last month, Turkey opened its borders to Europe for asylum seekers accusing the EU of failing to keeps its part of a 2016 refugee deal.

Athens, for its part, has slammed the accusations of Greek border guards firing on migrants as “fake news” and lies spun by the Turkish state. 

Athens has the backing of the EU for its zero tolerance stance preventing mass entry of migrants out of Turkey, per The Greek City Times: 

The Greek Army have been fortifying the Greek wall as the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan still refuses to engage in the EU directive, which aims to make all migrants move back from the border and return into Turkey.

Τhe Turkish side continued to provoke Greece by lobbing Molotov Cocktails and starting fires at several points along the border fence, to try to weaken the steel fence.

Interestingly, the dominant Syrian identity of the migrants has been widely questioned given video from the clashes often shows asylum-seekers speaking all kinds of regional languages from Pashtun to Urdu to Farsi, and not Syrian Arabic (Levantine dialect).