Greek police use tear gas on migrants at Turkish border

Source:Yahoo! Date:19Mar2020

Despite the title, this article reports that the Turkey-EU refugee crisis is over.

Greek police said they used tear gas to repel the push south of the Kastanies border crossing. They said Turkish authorities also fired tear gas at the Greek border. The clashes began at 2 a.m. and lasted for roughly two hours.

An estimated 2,000 migrants are still camped out on the Greek-Turkish border, weeks after Turkey declared its borders to Europe open and encouraged migrants and refugees living in the country to try crossing into European Union member Greece.

On Wednesday, Turkey declared that it was closing down its six land and sea border crossings with Greece and Bulgaria in an effort to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. But a senior Turkish official said that the measure did not amount to an end of Ankara’s policy of not preventing migrants from leaving Turkey.

The borders were sealed to people and not the transportation of goods, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with Turkish government protocol.