Athens
Nearly 400 migrants disembarked Sunday from a Turkish-flagged cargo ship that Greece allowed to dock on its territory despite charges that Turkey had violated a migrant deal.
The ship had sent a distress signal on Friday after its engines failed in internationthreal waters off Crete, according to Greek authorities who allowed it to dock at the southeastern Aegean island of Kos early on Sunday.
The Greek Coastguard said the migrants were transported to a reception center on the island while health ministry experts put them in quarantine and tested them for the coronavirus.
The migration ministry said 382 people disembarked from the ship, with six of them detained for questioning.
Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said on Ert tv that the migrants were mainly from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The channel said some were also from Afghanistan.
Mitarachi echoed official Greek frustration with what Athens says is Turkey’s refusal to take back the Turkish-flagged ship even though it knew it had set sail, calling it a violation of a 2016 agreement.
“We have notified the EU that Turkey has refusing to take their vessel back,” he said in a written statement.
“Greece has rescued hundreds of thousands of people in the last seven years – it is time for the EU to act and provide impactful solidarity and ensure the EU/Turkey statement is upheld.”
The European Union and Ankara signed a deal in March 2016 where Turkey was to sharply reduce the flow of migrants through its territory to EU countries Bulgaria and Greece in return for billions of euros in financial aid.
Both Greece and Turkey have accused the other of failing to honour the agreement sealed after more than a million migrants and asylum seekers entered the EU in 2015.
The Greek islands of the eastern Aegean are a first EU port of call for waves of migrants and asylum seekers coming via Turkey.
On Tuesday, four migrants, two of them children, drowned after a boat sank off the island of Chios.
The vessel had set out from Turkey during strong winds, and none of the occupants had been given a life vest by the smugglers, the Greek Coastguard said in a statement.—APP
