More Migrants
Attempt Sea
Journey but Find Hostile Greeting, Little Hope for Asylum
The Wall Street Journal
LESVOS, Greece—On
this Aegean island's shores, Syria's
refugee crisis is crashing up against Greece's migrant-policy mess.
Mohamed Simo, a 28-year-old Web designer from Aleppo,
Syria, wanted to avoid the
limbo of refugee camps of Turkey
and Jordan, so he paid
smugglers to bring him to Europe. After what
he said was a harrowing journey from Turkey in a sinking plastic boat on
a cold February night, he washed up in this tourist haven and was detained by
local police.
Thousands of Syrians escaping the war back home have
snuck into the European Union in the past year. Many brave the treacherous
Aegean-Sea route from Turkey
into Greece.
Once there, asylum is nearly impossible to obtain. WSJ's Matina Stevis reports.
"Before the war, I would never have put myself on a boat and
through such danger," Mr. Simo said in an interview last month in a bare
police office, as his guard watched British cooking shows on television.
"Please tell the police I didn't come here to make any trouble. I have
money."
While the vast majority of the million-plus Syrians who have fled their
country's war are amassing in neighboring nations, a smaller number of often
wealthier refugees have aimed to reach Europe's
northern states, where chances for asylum are relatively good. Those who have
entered through Greece, Europe's most porous eastern entry point, have found a
harsher welcome.
Reuters
One Syrian, shown on an Athens
hotel roof, thought he could move throughout Europe after entering Greece. But he
was detained for three months.
Greek authorities can detain asylum seekers for up to 18 months while
officials process their applications—a situation human-rights groups liken to
the treatment of criminals. In 2012, no Syrians were granted asylum in Greece, the
European Commission said. Most Syrian refugees in the country instead join the
thousands of other migrants who struggle to find work in a sinking economy
while attempting to avoid coming to the attention of both officials and
anti-migrant extremists.
Over the past year, 6,500 Syrians were detected crossing into Greece
illegally—about six times the level of the previous year—according to Frontex,
the European Union border agency. More still went undetected, say Greek
officials. An additional 1,500 were found living in Greece without the necessary
permits.
An increasing number are attempting to enter by sea from Turkey's Aegean coast, meanwhile, after Athens erected a
10-kilometer (7-mile) "security fence" along the porous northern
section of the Turkish border.
Smugglers crowd migrants onto flimsy plastic or inflatable boats, often
offering one of them a discount to pilot the craft, according to the Hellenic
coast guard. While the distance between Turkey and the border Greek islands
around here can be as short as a few miles, local currents and winter storms
can be vicious. Journeys are usually made at night.
Since November, more than 100 migrants have drowned and at least a dozen
bodies of Syrians have washed up on north Aegean islands, according to coast
guard estimates.
"Syrians are fleeing hell," said Lt. Antonios Sofiadelis, head
of the coast guard on Lesvos and the local
liaison for Frontex. "We worry that as the trouble continues, ever more
will risk their lives getting smuggled across the Aegean
Sea."
Most of the Syrian migrants plan to leave Greece for Northern Europe.
More than 90% of the 17,300 Syrians applying for asylum in Germany and Sweden in 2012 were successful,
according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the European
Commission. With the chance of gaining asylum in Greece
seen as nearly zero, few Syrians even try: Only 255 of the 8,000 who were found
entering or illegally residing in Greece lodged asylum applications,
according to UNHCR.
The EC has repeatedly called Greece the weakest link in the
bloc's passport-free travel zone, the Schengen area, criticizing both the
country's porous borders and its poor treatment of refugees. The EC has
funneled $310 million to Athens over the past two years to improve border
controls, build migrant reception centers and hire specialists to handle asylum
applications, making Greece one of the top three EU fund recipients for
migration alongside Italy and Spain.
In January, the UNHCR says it sent a personal letter to Greek Public
Order Minister Nikos Dendias urging Greece
to provide Syrians the protection they are entitled to under international and
EU accords protecting refugees' rights that Greece has signed. Mr. Dendias's
office declined to comment.
The Greek police say they have taken "necessary measures" for
the appropriate treatment of Syrian citizens."It is self-evident that
procedures [of arrest] apply to Syrian nationals trying to cross the borders
illegally," the police said in a written response to questions
Mr. Simo, the Syrian web designer, believed the trip would be worth the
risk. He was finishing a master's degree in Malaysia,
he said, when regime rockets flattened his family home in Aleppo. While some family members fled to
sprawling refugee camps just over Syria's
border, Mr. Simo saw a brighter future in Europe.
"The refugee camp is like a big jail," he said.
He and two family members traveled to Turkey's western coast, where they
paid smugglers €1,200 ($1,560) each for a spot on a boat he said was no longer
than four or five meters (12 to 15
feet). He said it carried more than 20 migrants, mostly
Afghans and Somalis.
The boat began taking on water, he said. Their Turkish smuggler ordered
them to throw most of their belongings overboard. Four hours after setting off,
they reached shore on this island of olive groves and tourist inns, where they
were soon rounded up by police.
After five days in the Lesvos holding pen, Mr. Simo was released and
given a paper in Greek stating he had 30 days to opt for a voluntary return to
his country, for which Greece
would pay. That is standard practice for illegal migrants.
But even if Mr. Simo wanted to return to Aleppo,
he couldn't: Returns are organized with migrants' embassies in Athens,
and Syria's
mission is closed. Hoping to join the many Syrians planning to get to Sweden as soon as possible to apply for asylum,
he has arranged to pay a smuggler €6,000 for a fake passport to travel by air
to Stockholm.
For now, he is waiting in Athens,
adding to the number of Syrians attempting to escape notice there.
Among them is Jihan Ahmad, a 43-year-old housewife from the northern
Syrian city of Al-Qamishli, who has been sleeping on dirty blankets in a single
room in Athens
with her five children, ages 4 to 17, since arriving six months ago. Her
husband was supposed to follow with her youngest daughter, but was detained by
government security forces and hasn't been heard from since January.
With little money, Mrs. Ahmad and her 17-year-old daughter, Alav, often
forage amid the rotten unsold produce at open-air vegetable markets in downtown
Athens. On the
street, they are verbally abused. They live in fear, they say, of being
attacked by members of Golden Dawn, the increasingly popular Greek far-right
party accused of promoting vigilante violence against migrants.
Alav, who was close to finishing high school in Al-Qamishli before her
family fled, said: "Greece
is like Syria,
only here there are no bombs."
A
version of this article appeared March 19, 2013, on page A9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with
the headline: Syrians Find No Refuge in Greece.
