AP — Hundreds of migrants and refugees have arrived on Greek islands after days of low numbers, despite a European Union-Turkey agreement under which new arrivals will be sent back to Turkey.
Figures released by the Greek government Wednesday showed 766 people reached the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios and Kos in the 24 hours until Wednesday morning. The number is a roughly a three-fold jump compared with arrivals in previous days, when weather conditions had been poorer.
The increase comes a day after the EU noted the number of arrivals had dropped sharply over the previous week.
Under an EU-Turkey agreement, Ankara is supposed to stop migrants reaching Europe and take back all people from Greece who do not qualify for asylum.
Meanwhile Austria’s government plans to further tighten rules on those seeking asylum in the country as of mid-May.
The move, announced Wednesday, places additional limits on who qualifies for safe haven after restrictions introduced earlier this year as Austria and its eastern neighbors shut down the West Balkans migrant route.
Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner says that under the new rules, applications will be accepted only from “those that we have to” – for instance in cases where a person faces threats to safety in a neighboring country that he or she transited.
Austria has set a limit of 37,500 asylum applications for the year, after receiving nearly 90,000 in 2015. Mikl-Leitner says 14,000 were submitted as of the end of March.
Poland’s foreign minister says the government stands by its commitment to take in 7,000 refugees, on condition they are checked for security and are willing to settle in Poland.
Poland had previously agreed on that number, but following the attacks in Brussels last week Prime Minster Beata Szydlo said she saw “no possibility” of accepting any migrants. The words were understood as reneging on the refugees deal.
But Witold Waszczykowski said on TVP INFO late Tuesday that Poland will be ready to “review the applications” of those refugees whose identities are confirmed, who are declared as posing no security threat and who are willing to come to Poland. He expressed doubt as to whether 7,000 such refugees could be found.
The Czech government has agreed to donate 20.4 million euros ($22.8 million) to Turkey as part of a European Union plan to help the country deal with the influx of migrants.
Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek says the money will be gradually given to Turkey from now until 2019, starting with 6 million euros ($6.72 million) this year. He says Wednesday the money should help Turkey “to stop the flow of migrants” and that Turkish efforts will be closely monitored.
More than 1 million refugees entered Europe last year, most of them flowing in from Turkey across Greece’s porous Aegean Sea border.
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