AFP, ATHENS: Germany on Thursday pledged to support Greece in dealing with the “extraordinary burden” of migrants landing on its shores every day, as the death toll from the latest boat sinkings rose to 27.
More than half a million people have arrived by sea in Greece this year seeking safety and a better life in Europe, while more than 3,200 people have died making the perilous crossing from Turkey.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on a visit to Athens, said Berlin was ready to stand by Greece as it coped on the front line of Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II. “At a moment when Greece is trying to recover economically, this influx is an extraordinary burden,” Steinmeier told the Greek daily Ta Nea.
“We will support Greece as it faces up to this big challenge.”
Europe, he said, “must demonstrate more courage in order to grow stronger”. “We must act together to take control of the situation, to safeguard Europe’s external borders, to develop a common approach to asylum and immigration and to fairly share out the refugees,” he said.
More than 700,000 people have reached Europe via the Mediterranean in 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), with many hoping to make it to Germany, the continent’s economic powerhouse.
Most of those travelling to Greece have risked their lives making the dangerous sea crossing in overloaded,
rickety boats. Several sank off Greek islands in the Aegean Sea on Wednesday, with the death toll rising to 17, including 11 children, after another body was found and a child died in hospital on the island of Lesbos. Around 40 people were still missing.