Greece claims that “invasion” in Crete when he tries to stop the refuge on the MED route

In the center of the news, the cavernous hall, the rows of men sit silently, without taking them but waiting.

The signs of the old tourist fair, pushing behind them, urge visitors to “study the beauty of nature” with the illustrations of bay and beaches in Crete.

But those who passed in the former Aya exhibition center did not come to the Greek island as vacationers. These are migrants who risked traveling across the sea from Libya to the southern outskirts of Europe, and then detained and denied the right to apply for asylum.

They are now moving to closed premises on the mainland.

The right for those who require protection or asylum, entered in the EU and international law and the Constitution of Greece itself. But in the course of the rush earlier this month and being criticized by human rights lawyers, the government exceeded this principle at least for the next three months.

The new Migration Minister Thanos Pleuris told the BBC that his country is faced with “emergency”. He tells about “invasion” and the need for strong restraining. “Everyone who comes will be detained and returning,” he emphasizes.

Now, even people who escape from war in Sudan are not recorded without chances to explain their history.

Inside the old exhibition center, the migrants warned that they were talking to us guards. “They are in prison,” we were told.

Greece is baked in a thermal wave, and many men were in the vests or deprived the waist. There were several water cranes along the edges, but there are no proper shower on the floor. Boxes with sacrificed clothing and toys scored by the doors remained unpacked guards who were wary of provoked fights.

Within two days, we saw only a couple of hundred migrants in Aya – from countries, including Egypt, Bangladesh and Yemen, we heard as Sudan.

There were 20 teenage boys and two women sitting together.

But when 900 people landed from Libya during one weekend earlier this month, the object was stretched to the border.

More than 7,000 migrants reached Crete since January and late June, which is more than three times the number in 2024.

In general, during this period, the main route in the Libyan Critic Finishing was recorded by almost 20,000 crossings in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the main route of Libya-Cry.

Gandalists began to send people to Crete seriously after a couple of years ago Italy signed a deep contradictory deal with Libya, which allows you to intercept migrants into the sea and push back, despite great evidence of human rights violations.

It was mid -July when the government in Athens took its step.

“The road to Greece is closed,” said the Prime Minister of Kirakas Mitsotakis, announcing that all migrants who “enter into illegally” will be arrested.

A few days later, Mustafa-20-year-old, who ran from the Sudan War, was detained.

From AII, he was transferred to camp outside Athens, known as a clutch, ranks of gray national huts in a dried hunt surrounded by high fences and security cameras.

“We live here as a prison,” Mustafa told me when I managed to contact the phone. “They don’t allow us to move. We don’t have clothes and shoes. Our situation is very bad.”

The lawyers who visited Emindale confirm their account, describing the recent arrivals that go barefoot on hot soil baking and receiving minimal information. Usually, Sudan’s citizens will be provided asylum in Europe.

In a series of voice and textual messages, Mustafa told how he spent months in difficult conditions in Libya, waiting for his chance to cross. Then he was in the sea of two days of 38 people packed on a plastic boat that had to be saved. “We failed to achieve (land) with the waves.”

After surviving this test, he is now afraid of Greece, he will try to return it.

“I left my country out of the war, I can’t go back,” Mustafa said. “I come from Sudan because Sudan has a war and I want defense. That’s why I came here.”

“Now we don’t know what our fate will be.”

The Minister of Greek Migration describes himself as a “tough line” on immigration issues.

“It is clear that the country cannot take such pressure from the migration rather than respond,” Tonos Plevris retreated, and defended new government measures.

He claimed that Crete received “one, two, three thousand people a day” from Libya when he entered, though he scale it in three days in three days.

Pleuris has no hassle on maintaining the right to request asylum, believing that Sudanese refugees can simply stay in Libya.

“I want to be quite honest. We try to make a balance between respect for their rights and respect for people in Greece,” was a solid minister. “Anyone who enters the Greek territory for the next three months knows that they violate the Greek law.”

The European Commission states that it “looks into” this step.

The press secretary said the BBC that the situation was an “exception” because the surge of small arrival on the boat had “possible consequences in terms of European security”.

Poland also stopped asylum applications on the eastern border in March, although. Greece itself did so earlier in 2020 during an increase in arrival from Turkey.

Some obligations of the European Convention on Human Rights may be abolished “during the war or other emergency that threaten the life of the nation.”

Whether the current situation is such a serious threat to either Poland or Greece.

“This article is designed for war or mass uprising,” says Dimitris Furkakis, a lawyer who is actively working with migrants in Crete and sees an alarming trend across Europe.

He warns that it will also be replenished in the detention center because it is easy to say “sending migrants back”, but it is very difficult to make.

“I think this is a completely illegal solution. This is a very big step, a very wrong step. And I think the best they can – it’s to stop it immediately,” the lawyer says.

The increase in the small arrival on the boat occurred when the beaches and bars of Crete were filled in the summer, and the Minister of Migration says that the defense of the tourist industry was its priority.

“I have never seen migrants,” admits that Andreas Lugiacis, the owner of the restaurant in the beautiful village of Paleochora on the Southern coast, which says boats mostly reach the tiny island of Gaudos.

Even talking about their arrival is bad for business.

“Of course, we feel sad, but … people think this place is full of immigrants; no beaches, no place,” Andreas says. “We just worry for our business and our families.”

The shelter suspension is part of much broader repression on irregular migrants. The minister plans to jail anyone who does not leave Greece when their refuge is rejected and uses electronic monitoring.

He also promised a “sharp review”.

Claiming that “millions” in North Africa are ready to move to Europe, citing conversations in Libya, Pleuris believes that other countries should be grateful for their determination.

“You need to know that if EU countries do not take tough measures, then all this stream of migrants will be directed to your societies,” he warns. “Greece talked about it before, but then no one listened.”

Every night, when the sky above the coat becomes orange, the coast guard accompanies a group of migrants to the port and at night passenger ferry for Athens.

When the number of arrivals rose earlier this month, they struggled on board.

The minister insists that the suspension of the shelter’s rights is a temporary step, most likely for summer.

It seems a tall wind, not the government’s determination, slowed the flow of boats.

But this step has caused concern about how easily governments can abandon the basic right in the security name. It also leaves huge questions for those like Mustafa from Sudan who fled the war and have now been detained in Europe.