Shipping out to new lands

SAMOS, Greece: Six men and a woman crouch in the dark against the wall of the coast guard headquarters. An officer wearing camouflage fatigues barks: “Name? Papa? Age?” With a show of fingers they indicate their years: from 20 to 27. “Country?” He shouts louder when they do not understand. He speaks in English, a language in which they may have a few words in common. Five say they are from Afghanistan, two say they are Palestinians. Then he lines them up and marches them along the waterfront.

Scenes like this play out nightly on Samos, one of three Greek islands so close to Turkey that no international waters lie between them. Migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, Eritrea, the Palestinian territories and Iran land on these islands, strung out along a new fault line for immigration into the European Union.

Smugglers monitor the coast guards of Greece and Turkey and, immigration lawyers and migrants say, charge $870 for a place on an inflatable dinghy in which the migrants row the short but treacherous distance into the European Union.

At better-known targets for migrants trying to pierce the borders of the European Union — Lampedusa, off Italy, and the Canary Islands — refugees try to land after travelling hundreds of miles in flimsy boats. Here, their peril and fate are compressed into less than a mile of sea. The total of arrivals on this island chain more than doubled in 2007, putting a strain on the islands. By the end of November, 10,961 migrants had landed on Samos, Lesbos and Chios, islands in the northern Aegean Sea, compared with 4,024 for all of 2006, said Vassilios Gatsas, the chief of police for the three islands. By contrast, clandestine arrivals in Lampedusa and the Canaries have declined.

With geography putting Greece on the defensive against this flow, it has reacted forcefully. For many who land here, the door is slamming firmly shut. They are arrested and put in detention for three months. Most are then ordered to leave the country within 30 days. Many of those who elude the authorities and try to arrange to be smuggled farther into Europe are caught and sent back to Greece. “Greece was not ready to accept such vast numbers of immigrants,” Gatsas said.

Most Greeks, with a history of hardship and emigration, are still broadly sympathetic to the migrants. But the interior ministry has to deal with policy and policing problems, and international criticism is mounting.

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