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| Migrants try to get on a bus which will take them to the Turkish-Greek border, in Istanbul, Turkey |
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Tuesday urged European Union countries to provide more support to Greece as it faces a new wave of migrants and refugees from Syria and other parts of the Middle East.
Around 10,000 migrants, mostly from Syria, other Middle Eastern states and Afghanistan, have reached Turkeyโs land border with Greece since Ankara said last week it would stop keeping them on its territory, Greek officials say.
โGreece is an EU member state so its primary source of support is European resources,โ Filippo Grandi told journalists in Geneva. โGreece needs more of that. That is very clear.โ
Conditions on Greeceโs Aegean islands, where at least 1,000 people have arrived since Sunday, are โreally untenableโ, Grandi added.
The heads of the three main EU institutions โ the executive Commission, the European Council, which represents national governments, and the European Parliament โ were due to visit the land border area with Greeceโs prime minister on Tuesday.
Grandi urged countries to stop โbickeringโ over who should take in migrants and to look at the root causes of displacement.
โFrankly, instead of bickering about who takes who or rather who doesnโt take whom because thatโs the main bickering, states should look at the root causes of this,โ he added, saying that few, if any, of those arriving were in fact from northwest Syria, where fighting has escalated in recent days.
Grandi praised Turkey, which is already hosting some 3.7 million Syrian refugees, saying it had been โvery goodโ at hosting them.
REUTERS
