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On September 13th, 215, a rubber boat carrying Syrian and Afghan refugees was deflated 1 meters away from Lesvos Island in Greece, and local people and volunteers gave assistance to the refugees. (CFP/ Figure)
According to the statistics of the International Organization for Migration, as of September 1, 215, the number of refugees entering Europe from the Mediterranean region has exceeded 4, this year. Greece is the European country with the largest number of refugees.
It was Gaddafi, a madman in the Middle East, who first predicted this wave of European refugee crisis. As early as 211 when the war in Libya was tense, he warned that once he was overthrown, no one would stop illegal immigrants from "invading" Europe.
"The Mediterranean will be filled with chaos." Gaddafi said.
This article was first published in the Southern Weekend
Micro Signal: nanfangzhoumo
What Alari, a 55-year-old Syrian businessman, used to protect himself from the direct midday sun was only a yellow towel. The position where he stood was only five or six meters away from the barbed wire used to mark the border, but in front of him, Macedonian soldiers with shields and guns put him and the rest of Asian and African refugees on the Greek side for the time being.
It's so far away that it looks concrete and vivid in the face of man-made obstacles.
1 "We once faced death in the sea" This is a field on the outskirts of Edumaini, a border town in northern Greece. In midsummer, the sun at 345 degrees Celsius bites the skin like a poisonous insect. As far as I can see, there are few trees, grass and grass are dry, and only one rail shows a stiff movement, extending to the northwest. Although along the railway track, what the naked eye can see is only a heat wave transpiration in the yellow, it is the reason why refugees flock here. The railway runs from Athens in southern Europe, through the Balkans and directly to Central Europe. It is a landmark for refugees to flee. Leaving Central Europe is the destination of refugees: Western Europe and Northern Europe.
Unlike other refugees who avoid the camera, Alari always smiles happily and friendly for the camera and gestures to talk with reporters. A young refugee beside him volunteered to be an interpreter. Therefore, when he proudly said that he had 2 children and 5 wives, everyone around him, including Macedonian soldiers on duty, all laughed. The fourth wife, who was with him, wrapped her head and laughed happily with everyone.
In fact, the story of this 55-year-old refugee is not funny, but thrilling. "We fled to Turkey during the last Ramadan." Alari began to narrate. Alari, who lives in Aleppo and is good at trade, is a local rich man with many possessions. More than a year ago, Syrian government troops entered Aleppo and occupied all his houses as barracks. He tried to be reasonable and was beaten. He had no way to beg, and it was difficult to return home, so he had to flee to the north, hoping to recover his assets one day. Unexpectedly, the people of the "Islamic State" came again. The Alari family, who are Kurds themselves, were in extreme danger, so they fled to Turkey in July.
Despite Alari's money, life in Turkey is still very difficult. In fact, the "Kurdistan" mentioned in Alari's talk-meaning "the land of Kurds"-was originally a province of the Ottoman Empire, which promised to make Kurds independent with other nationalities after the First World War. However, in the Treaty of Lausanne, the interests of Kurds were betrayed, and most areas were still ruled by Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, while other areas were later divided up by Iran, Syria and Iraq, forming today's situation.
Alari's extended family is far apart in flight: two sons fled to Lebanon with their families; Two daughters followed their husbands to "Kurdistan" in Iraq; One son lost contact in Turkey, and the other son went to Africa ... Five days ago, they paid the smuggler smuggling fee from Izmir at the price of $1,2 per adult and $6 per child, and put it on a ship full of 4 people for the Greek island of Lesvos.
"We once faced death in the sea." Alari said that the ship began to enter the water, and the refugees threw their clothes and packages into the sea in panic to delay the sinking time. A refugee with a mobile phone called the Greek coast guard for help, and the latter arrived in time with two boats, only to survive.
After Lesvos handled the relevant legal documents, the Greek police took them on a boat, and they paid 6 euros for adults and 3 euros for children, and were sent to Athens. Then, take a long-distance bus from Athens to the border at the price of 55 euros for adults and 22.5 euros for children.
Alari's other wives have led some children across the border; Now he is waiting to meet them with two wives and seven children.
Alari said that his most valuable thing is a black briefcase that he always carries under his arm, which contains a series of legal documents, including video materials, to prove that assets worth more than two million dollars in his hometown belong to him.
Alari and his family are very happy to set foot on the land of Europe. "It's much better here. People give us food and try to help us." But Alari is not sure which country he wants to go to. He even consulted reporters on the spot and asked everyone to give him advice, showing the true nature of a businessman who is smart and pragmatic. "I hope to go to a place where human rights are respected." He said that he began to inquire about which country in Europe is more suitable for doing business.
Royal Navy soldiers rescued more than 4 refugees from North Africa who crossed the Mediterranean by boat by rubber boats and landing craft, and took them to amphibious assault ship on HMS Bulwark. (CFP/ Figure)
2
The experience of the Alari family in Greece's "crisis in crisis" is a microcosm of the 31, refugees who entered other European countries from Greece this year. With the deterioration of the civil war in Syria, Greece has become the European country with the largest number of refugees. According to the statistics of the International Organization for Migration, as of September 1, 215, the number of refugees entering Europe from the Mediterranean region has exceeded 4, this year. Last year, the total number of refugees entering China was 21,.
Statistics show that 8% of the refugees are from Syria, while others are from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries.
Southeast Turkey has a 9-kilometer-long border with Syria, so it is not difficult to understand why there are 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, and it is not difficult to understand why Greece, known as the southern gate of Europe and close to Turkey, has become the first stop for refugees to land in Europe. In 212, Greece built more than 1 kilometers of barbed wire along the Efros River on the Greek-Turkish border, blocking the land entry channel, so refugees turned to enter Greece by sea.
Just like the Alari family, most refugees paid high fees to Turkish snakeheads and crossed the Strait by boat to reach Lesvos, Shios, Samos, Kos, Rhodes and other islands in the eastern part of the Greek Aegean Sea. The narrowest distance between these islands and Turkey is no more than 1 kilometers. In summer, the Aegean Sea is calm and relatively safe. The boats used for smuggling are usually rubber boats or small wooden boats. Snakeheads choose to send refugees to the boats at night, and usually temporarily train young men among the refugees to sail and steer, and each boat will be seriously overloaded. According to the police officers of the coast guard of Shios Island, refugees occasionally have life jackets. If they are in danger at sea, they will ask the Greek coast guard for help. If they encounter a patrol boat of the Coast Guard, they will even try to overturn the boat and float on the sea by themselves, waiting for rescue.
even if they arrive on the island safely, the first thing the refugees do is to get in touch with the coast guard. The latter will send them to temporary resettlement sites in batches, where basic food, clothes, baby milk powder and supplies are generally provided by charitable organizations. At the same time, refugees need to go through all the formalities such as identification and registration, and then obtain legal residence qualification for half a year or one month from the police station-the legal residence qualification for half a year is only for Syrian refugees, and refugees from other countries usually have only one month's residence qualification.
Under normal circumstances, it only takes two days for refugees to register on the island. "Then they will be free, completely free, and no one will follow them, watch them, and go wherever they want." A police officer of the Shios Island Police Department said.
The refugees will leave the island for Athens as soon as possible. There are social networks composed of Syrian Greeks and Syrian refugees, as well as other international organizations and non-governmental organizations that help refugees, and provide accommodation, medical care and legal assistance to refugees according to the situation.
After almost a short rest, the refugees will immediately take a bus from Athens to Adumini for transit. After arriving in Macedonia, each refugee will receive a subsidy of 1 euros, and then they will go through Macedonia, via Serbia and Hungary, and enter rich European countries such as Austria, Germany and the Netherlands-that is the destination of the refugees.
however, the above description of "road map" is only "normal situation". The debt crisis that can't get rid of has left Greece in the predicament of sustained economic recession and high unemployment rate for five consecutive years; The rapid increase in the number of refugees, even if it is only a transit, has undoubtedly become another heavy burden on Greece, which has always been a "small country with few people". No wonder Prime Minister Tsipras, who just resigned, called it a "crisis in crisis".
The route of refugees fleeing Europe in p>215 (Liang Shuyi/photo)
3
The "ghost ship" crossing the Mediterranean first predicted this wave of European refugee crisis, and it turned out that it was the madman Gaddafi in the Middle East. As early as 211 when the war in Libya was tense, he warned that once he was overthrown, no one would stop illegal immigrants from "invading" Europe.
"The Mediterranean will be filled with chaos." Gaddafi said.
Even during his earlier visit to Italy, Gaddafi regarded illegal immigration as a bargaining chip with Europe. He told the media that Europe should not only blame him for his attitude towards immigrants, but should pay him a lot of money for successfully stopping illegal immigrants. Of course, Gaddafi's method to stop immigrants from smuggling is simple, rude and effective, with distinctive "Gaddafi characteristics", that is, throwing bombs at them.
Gaddafi is irreversibly heading for his destiny; The Mediterranean has indeed responded to the influx of refugees. It first crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. Among all kinds of stowaways, the most famous one is the "ghost ship", which is named because it has no captain and helmsman crew. Specifically, it is the snakehead who buys the eliminated cargo ship from the shipowner at a low price and uses it for smuggling. Cargo ships usually have automatic navigation systems with good performance, so the snakeheads only need to set the route and speed by computer and start the self-driving program. These "ghost ships" with no crew, no driving and full of illegal immigrants will sail to Italian ports unscrupulously.
No one knows whether Gaddafi predicted the future of Syria at that time; Political changes in the Middle East and Africa have forced thousands of people to leave their homes. The long and narrow Mediterranean Sea is the natural geographical barrier between Europe, Africa and Asia. However, the popularity of the Internet and the advanced means of transportation have greatly weakened the barrier function. Going to Europe and Germany has become the only dream of refugees who are unpredictable and displaced.
According to the information provided by UNHCR, there are three routes for Asian and African refugees to flee to Europe. The west road fled to Spain, and the number was small; The middle road fled to Italy, once the largest number, and is currently in the middle; East Road landed in Greece. In the past, the number of people was small, and this year it jumped to the first place.
The escape route of refugees seems to prove once again the simple principle of "voting with their feet". Whenever possible, they will instinctively choose safe roads and avoid dangerous or even unfriendly places. When the refugees were asked why they didn't choose to enter Bulgaria from Turkey, the answer was that the route was more dangerous. Bulgaria is not a Schengen country, and neither is Albania. In these two countries, if refugees are found by the police, they will be sent to detention centers immediately; And other risks such as being stolen and robbed along the way are also much greater.
Therefore, entry from Greece has become the first choice, although the three countries that Greece needs to pass after are not particularly friendly. Macedonia and Hungary have closed their borders and accumulated a large number of refugees, making their situation even worse; Doctors of Doctors Without Borders, based in Adumini, said that they had treated refugees who were beaten and injured by gangsters in Macedonia and had to flee to the Greek border.
4
When the "order" of Greeks met with the "disorder" of refugees, former Turkish Prime Minister ozal once ridiculed the old enemies of Greece and Turkey like this: "We don't need to go to war with Greece. We only need to send millions of illegal immigrants from Turkey to finish them. " Although it is a joke, it also partly tells the embarrassing situation of Greece, which lacks human resources.
At present, Greece is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees into the eastern islands of Greece.
In Shios, as early as May, when the number of refugees was not too large, the "Identification Center" originally designed to accommodate 1, refugees had more than 2, refugees. In Coase, there are too many refugees, the registration time has been greatly extended, and the resettlement sites have long been overcrowded. Many refugees can only brave the high temperature above 3 degrees and sleep on the streets for five or six days with their families, which is extremely difficult. As a result, the refugees lost patience and attacked the police station; In Lesvos, the reception facilities set up by the Greek government can only accommodate 9 people at most, but the number of refugees who have arrived every week in the past two months has reached 1,, and many refugees have not been helped. The situation in Athens is not much better. Refugees living on the streets can be seen everywhere in the city center.
The most difficult thing for Greeks to cope with is the disorder of refugees.
As the greatest symbol of the splendid civilization of ancient Greece, the Parthenon still stands on the Acropolis, overlooking the city of Athens proudly. The pillars of the Parthenon have a special name called column, and the English word is order. Besides the meaning of paradigm, they also have the meaning of arrangement and order, which reflects the rational spirit of the ancient Greeks. For thousands of years, "order" has penetrated into the bone marrow of the Greeks.
But the refugees originally came from Asia and Africa, which were not so orderly. After a long journey, they were even more anxious and confused.
Summer is the peak of tourism in Greece. The surge in the number of refugees has led to a tight ferry ticket in the Aegean Sea, and even a ticket is hard to find on weekends. At the port, refugees are eager to board the ferry, which makes it difficult to maintain order during boarding. Under normal circumstances, ferries often have special garages, with large trucks and cars driving up in series and passenger passages on both sides. In the past, people and cars went their own way, occasionally, but generally calmly. Now, the crew have to stop the immigrants and other passengers in a safe area and let the vehicles into the warehouse before they dare to let people on board, so as to avoid accidents. Despite this, there was a scene in Kos where the ferry was full and stopped carrying passengers, while the refugees still pushed forward and tried to board the ship forcibly. The police finally had to use tear gas to force them back.
On board, the refugees are either curious or don't understand the price difference of each cabin, and they will wander around and even sit in cabins that don't belong to them, so the English-speaking crew will run up and down and persuade them to leave the cabins that don't belong to them.
obviously, you need to know more English on the ferry.