The Washington Post | 10.09.2017
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus police arrested a 36-year-old man Sunday for allegedly driving one of two boats that brought 305 Syrian refugees to the Mediterranean island’s northwestern coast.
Another 29-year-old man was also taken into custody on suspicion of migrant trafficking.
Police spokesman Michalis Ioannou said the 202 men, 30 women and 73 children arrived about midnight in what is thought to be the largest number of migrants to reach Cyprus in a single day. He said they departed from Mersin, Turkey, on Saturday.
The passengers reported paying up to $2,000 (1,658 euros) each to smugglers for the trip. Some with relatives in Cyprus have expressed a desire to remain, while others want to go to Germany or Scandinavia.
Among those waiting for the migrants at a reception center in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia was Ammar Hammasho. The 35-year-old Syrian said he felt both joy and relief at seeing his four small children and wife behind the center’s chain-link fence after fearing for their safety during the trip.
Hammasho came to Cyprus a year ago from the Syrian city of Idlib where he said his home was destroyed by airstrikes that killed one of his children.
“It’s getting worse,” Hammasho told The Associated Press. “Everyone on either side is telling their own lies.”
In Turkey, the coast guard stopped an unnamed fishing boat carrying 93 Syrians and one Afghan migrant Sunday off the coast of Istanbul on the Black Sea. The authorities also caught an alleged Turkish smuggler.
Turkish authorities also announced late Saturday that coast guard boats had prevented two separate migrant landings in the Black Sea. In one, 68 Syrians and two Iranians were stopped in a sailboat with an alleged Turkish smuggler east of Bulgaria.
In the other, Turkish coast guard intercepted 149 Syrian migrants and two Ukrainians thought to be smugglers in a fishing boat east of Romania. The migrants and suspects were brought to northwestern Kirklareli province in Turkey for processing.
Turkey and the European Union signed a deal in March 2016 to curb the flow of migrants to Greek islands on the Aegean Sea. A million people crossed the sea in the year before the agreement, with hundreds drowning along the way.
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The Sofia Globe | 10.09.2017
Romanian Coastguard stops boats with hundreds of refugees
Boats carrying more than 200 refugees were stopped by the Romanian Coastguard on Saturday, according to reports in Austrian and Romanian publications. According to those, a boat with 97 asylum seekers, including 36 children, who said they were Iranian and Iraqi, was located close to the Bulgarian border, in Romanian waters.
The Coastguard lead the boat into the port of Mangalia, where the Romanian authorities set up tents. At that location, the refugees underwent medical checks. They also received food and beverages, before they were taken to a refugee camp.
Just hours before, the Romanian Coastguard had intercepted a fishing boat carrying 120 in international waters. In this case, the Turkish authorities sent two boats, which brought the migrants back to Turkey.
Since the route via the Mediterranean is increasingly difficult to pass and the so-called Balkan route is effectively closed, people smugglers seem to be setting up a new Black Sea route.
So far, relatively few refugees had tried to enter Romania by crossing the Danube river. In the past year, several migrants, including children, have drowned while trying.
The authorities in the country have caught 2,800 so-called “illegal migrants” during the first seven months of this year. According to a press release by the Border Police in Bucharest, the regugees were “organised in 416 migrant groups , in which 170 facilitators were identified”.
Because of the increased numbers of refugees, the Romanian Border Police announced it wanted to “increase the citizens’ safety and to fight effectively cross-border crime”. By the latter, they also meant the smuggling of illegal cigarettes and counterfeit. The new measures include the purchase of more technical equipment and the employment of more border guards.
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Novinite | 21.08.2017
The Romanina Coastal Guard Detained a Boat Carrying 70 Refugees
The Romaninan coastal guard detained a boat carrying 70 migrants near the port of Mangalia, reports Agerpress.
On the boat there were 23 children, 12 women and 35 man from Syrian and Iraqi descent. One of the women was pregnant and had to be transported to the hospital in Mangalia. In the end of last week the Romanian coastal guard captured motor yacht sailing with Turkish flag that had 69 migrants and was again in the same area. Romanian media say that the Black sea is increasingly preffered and turning into alternative route for migrants fleeing to Europe.