The Turkish government has sent an additional 1,000 special police to the border with Greece in order to prevent migrants coming back to the country.
The announcement was made on Thursday by Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who said the extra forces were being positioned in order to stop the Greek government from attempting to push migrants back onto Turkish territory.
The Turkish minister also claimed that Greek border forces had injured or wounded at least 164 migrants in recent days along the border, Kathimerini reports.
“They wounded 164 people. They tried to push 4,900 people back to Turkey,” Solyu said and added: “We are deploying 1,000 special force police to the border system… to prevent the push-back.”
The move comes after some have alleged that the Turkish military has been aiding migrants wanting to cross the border into Greece and acting as people smugglers.
“We have checked that everything has gone well and that the smugglers do not charge too much. We also have intelligence about where and when it is safe to get over,” a Turkish soldier told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter earlier this week.
Europe’s Borders at Breaking Point as Migrants Shipped to Frontier in Unmarked Buses https://t.co/oTh9QQICZG
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 2, 2020
Others have claimed that the Turkish government has used unmarked buses and state-owned trains to help ship migrants to the border area as well.
Greek newspaper Proto Thema has also reported that the Turkish government has handed out wigs to migrants in the border area, which they allege is being done to disguise migrant men as women in order to claim there are more women at the border.
The newspaper stated that the Greek army found the wigs on the banks of the Evros river near Feres. Greek forces also alleged that Turkey had marked migrants with tags in order to control their movement and account for migrant numbers.
Since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the gates to Europe last week for all migrants wanting to head to Europe, Turkish interior minister Süleyman Soylu has claimed that over 100,000 migrants have travelled to the border and Erdogan himself has warned that millions more are on the way.
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