First migrants arrive in Turkey in EU deportation scheme

Migrants sent back from the Greek island of Lesbos have begun arriving in Turkey under a controversial EU scheme aimed at closing the main route by which a million people poured across the Aegean Sea to Greece in the last year.

Under the deal Turkey will take back all migrants and refugees who enter Greece illegally, including Syrians, in return for the EU taking in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.

Two Turkish-flagged passenger boats carrying 131 migrants arrived in the Turkish town of Dikili this morning.

A coastguard official on the Greek island of Chios said 66 people, most of them Afghans, were also sent to Turkey on a third boat.

The aim of the EU-Turkey deal is to discourage migrants from perilous crossings, often in small boats and dinghies, and to break the business model of human smugglers who have fuelled Europe's biggest migration wave since World War II.

A few hours after the first boat of returnees set sail from Lesbos, Greek coast guard patrol vessels rescued at least two dinghies carrying more than 50 migrants and refugees, including children and a woman in a wheelchair, trying to reach the island.

A group of 47 mainly Pakistani men were also intercepted by the Turkish coast guard and taken to a holding centre next to Dikili's port........http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0404/779289-migrant-deportation-commencement/
4/4/16
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• Amnesty dénonce des expulsions collectives illégales de réfugiés syriens par la Turquie ... 

• Turkey 'illegally returning Syrian refugees' - Amnesty... 

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