Greece scales back proposed border fence with Turkey

Jan 3, 2011, 9:09 GMT

Athens - Stung by criticism, the Greek government on Monday was backing away from a plan to build a fence along its border with Turkey in a bid to keep out illegal immigrants, according to government sources.

New plans released Monday by the Citizen Protection Ministry indicated plans now called for a 12.5-kilometre-long and three-metre- high fence along a weak entry point on the border, near the Evros river and town of Orestidada.

Plans mooted over the weekend had called for a 206-kilometre-long fence.

Media still criticized the new plan, calling it window dressing.

Officials had said Saturday the 206-kilometre-long fence would be like the one erected by the United States along its frontier with Mexico.

In the six months up through the end of November, 33,000 illegal immigrants have been detected crossing the Greek-Turkish land border. Most are from Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Iraq. Since November, European Union teams have been patrolling the border with Greek police.

It is the first time that a team of the EU's Rapid Border Intervention agency Frontex has been deployed to an EU member state since the teams were created in 2007.

Officials said over the weekend that, in 2010, an average of '200 refugees each day' had crossed into Greece from Turkey.

Around 80 per of the illegal immigrants in the EU arrive via Greece. Large numbers then seek to reach Italy via ferry.

There are currently an estimated 300,000 people living illegally in Greece.

Illegal immigrants nabbed by border police are placed in detention camps, which are bursting at the seams. Human rights groups have criticized Greece's asylum policy and conditions in the camps.

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