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2021-10-24 Europe
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Greek island on front line of Europe's migrant route builds dedicated 'prison camp' ringed with razor wire - is it cruel or the only way to curb traffickers
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[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] - On Greek island of Samos a migrant camp is guarded by police and razor fence
- Each migrant is vetted to ensure they are not a terrorist posing as a refugee
- The Home Secretary has visited the camp and hopes to bring regime to Britain
The camp is divided into colour-coded zones: Afghans (blue), Africans (red) and Arabs (green) all separated to stop fights between the factions who accuse each other of racism and use fists or worse to solve differences. Migrants can leave the camp only if they use their fingerprints to pass through steel-turnstile checkpoints so that the camp authorities know where they are at all times.
They are counted in at night and each migrant has been vetted to ensure they are not a terrorist trying to slip in posing as a refugee, or posing any other security threat.
And it is a regime that could be coming to Britain soon. ‘This is the model of migrant camp that England hopes to copy.
'Your Home Secretary Priti Patel has come here to see it for herself,’ says Demitrius Axiotis, the 56-year-old former Greek army officer who runs what is called the closed control access centre on Samos.
‘In three or four months we will have 3,000 migrants living here and we will be full. We are expecting Afghans fleeing the Taliban to arrive very soon on the traffickers’ boats from Turkey to Samos. They will be brought here and treated just the same as all the others.’
This week the Daily Mail was the first British newspaper to visit the controversial camp, built out of the desperate need to stem the migrant flow from Turkey where four million wait to illegally enter Greece. The European Union has erected an important-looking sign outside the formidable structure that makes clear this is no holiday camp. Over the next year, more Greek islands in the east Aegean will also open ‘closed’ camps, with the EU footing the £200 million bill.
On Samos, the camp was born of necessity. Until this summer, 9,000 migrants had the run of the island. They lived in a rat-infested shanty village without lights, hot water or sanitation right beside Samos’s capital, until it was bulldozed and most of the inhabitants sent to Athens.
Mr Axiotis says for years there were more migrants in Samos’s main town than its 6,000 residents. ‘That was not right,’ he explains. ‘It was not fair on Samos people and we had to think about their safety. Greece is a devoutly Christian country and the islanders worried the boats coming to the island were carrying strangers.’
So could this Greek island’s authoritarian style of camp really be a possible solution for England’s own migrant crisis? The answer, it seems, could be yes. At least 20,000 migrants are expected to have arrived by boat to our south coast from France by the end of 2021. Most already here are in hotels paid for by the taxpayer. It is a situation that cannot go on forever, which is why the Home Secretary came here in August to meet Mr Axiotis at the Samos camp.
It was then six weeks away from opening but Ms Patel looked at the floor plans, toured the site under construction and was told of the ultra-secure deportation wing, to be finished by Christmas, for incarcerating inmates rejected for asylum in Europe and with no right to stay.
According to Mr Axiotis, she heard how the Greek coastguard is also pushing back migrants at sea towards Turkey, a contentious policy about to be introduced by the British in the Channel using Border Force jet ski teams to nudge boats back towards northern France. The Home Office believes Samos-style camps on British soil will make the UK less alluring and reduce illegal Channel crossings.
For who would want to end up living in a camp like it? The story peddled by people-smuggling gangs to drum up their trade is that England is a soft touch, a land of milk and honey where migrants are instantly housed in four-star accommodation or a council house with no questions asked.
‘Camps like Samos would make Britain a safer place for everyone, including the genuine asylum seekers who deserve our help,’ Home Office sources have told us.
A Nationality and Borders Bill is currently going through Parliament, with the same aim of helping real refugees and weeding out the rest. It is understood that if it gets approval next year, the new camps will be high on the agenda soon afterwards.
In Samos, we talked to migrants about what they thought of camp life. Most were put there because they have repeatedly been refused asylum in Greece. They are mightily displeased that they have been stopped from journeying onwards to Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands or, favourite of all, England.
In hut 126 in the Arab zone, we found an Iraqi Kurd family of four who, until it was pulled down in September, lived in the squalid Samos jungle camp for five years. Now they are in a two-bedroom hut with a kitchen, bathroom and never-ending hot water from the camp’s solar power system. But they are not happy with their lot.
If the camp’s deportation wing was open, there’s no doubt this family would be under lock and key inside it. Their asylum claim has been turned down by Greece four times and they should, under EU rules, be sent back to Turkey from where they first entered Europe. Turkey, however, says it is overwhelmed with migrants and can’t take more. It is also at loggerheads with Athens because it claims Greece is pushing back asylum-seekers to Turkey using brutal tactics at sea and on land which endanger the lives of women and children. 
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Posted by Skidmark 2021-10-24 00:00||
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