Europe’s migrant crisis escalated last night as border controls were reintroduced and Germany admitted it could no longer cope with the influx.
Berlin had sought to criticise others – including Britain – for not taking in enough refugees after it announced it would no longer deport those coming from Syria.
But the EU’s passport-free travel zone was on the brink of collapse after Germany was forced to ask Italy to tighten border controls.
As tensions between European leaders unable to agree on how to handle the crisis simmered, Slovakia’s foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak said the Schengen Agreement removing border checks between 26 European countries has fallen apart.
Last night, as the numbers crossing into Germany reached nearly 150 per hour, it asked Italy to impose identification checks at Brennero, on the border with Austria, to ease the flow.
An unprecedented surge of migrants has been trying to get to the country after Berlin last week began accepting asylum claims from Syrian refugees regardless of where they entered the EU.
It has caused chaos across eastern Europe as authorities have struggled to cope with the vast numbers who, as undocumented migrants, are theoretically barred from travelling across the EU.
Figures released yesterday showed a record 104,460 asylum seekers arrived in Germany last month.The other day, an Anonymous commenter posed the question of whether this stepped-up invasion is the result of Obama being in his last year or so as President.
On the same day that Turkey announced it would help fight the Islamic State, Turkish forces began an airstrike campaign against one of the very groups that has been crucial to stopping the advance of the Islamic State.These "Syrian" migrants who are flooding into Europe are doing so, to some extent, with the collusion of Turkey.
Over 1 million Syrians have taken refugee in Turkey since the outbreak of the crisis in March 2011.
Around 30 percent of these live in 22 government-run camps near the Syrian-Turkish border (see visualization below). The rest do their best to make ends meet in communities across the country.
Such a response has come with substantial cost, and by May 2013 the Turkish government had spent around $1.5 billion (€1.6 billion) on accommodating Syrian refugees.
The rising price tag has now forced the Turkish government to seek international support for an operation that, at the beginning, was guarded as a government responsibility.
Now UNHCR and other groups have much greater access to the refugees than they did at the beginning, but the Turkish government still maintains a large degree of control over the camps.
Turkey has accorded temporary protection to Syrians on their territory, which precludes forced repatriation, however legally they are not refugees in Turkey but ‘guests’.
Turkey is a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, however because of a geographic exception written into the original document it is only obligated to accept refugees from European nations.
Thus, Syrians in Turkey do not have access to all the legal safeguards accorded to refugees elsewhere, and those seeking permanent resettlement must look to a third nation.
Turkey long-maintained an open border for fleeing Syrians, although that policy has changed somewhat as the crisis has grown. For this reason, a substantial number of people are now camped on the Syrian side of the border, waiting for an opportunity to cross.It is my suspicion that Turkey is warehousing these migrants in their 22 refugee camps, only to dump them on Europe with the collusion of the European Union.