Greece claims ‘invasion’ in Crete as it tries to halt asylum on Med route” In the centre of a sweltering, cavernous hall, rows of men sit in silence with nothing to occupy them but the wait.
Signs from an old tourist fair propped up behind them urge visitors to “Explore the Beauty of Nature” with illustrations of coves and beaches in Crete.
But those held in the former Ayia exhibition centre did not come to the Greek island as holidaymakers. They are migrants who risked a journey across the sea from Libya to Europe’s southern tip and were then detained and denied the right to apply for asylum.
From Crete, they are now being moved to closed facilities on the mainland.
The right for anyone to request protection, or asylum, is inscribed in EU and international law and in the constitution of Greece itself. But in a move implemented in haste earlier this month and criticised by human rights lawyers, the government has over-ridden that principle for the next three months at least.More than 7,000 migrants reached Crete between January and late June, more than three times the number in 2024.
In all, the EU’s Frontex border agency recorded almost 20,000 crossings in the Eastern Mediterranean in that period, with the Libya-Crete corridor now the main route.
Traffickers began sending people to Crete in earnest after Italy signed a deeply controversial deal with Libya a couple of years ago that allows for migrants to be intercepted at sea and pushed back despite extensive evidence of human rights abuses.
It was mid-July when the government in Athens made its own move.
“The road to Greece is closing,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament, announcing that all migrants “entering illegally” would be arrested.
A few days later, Mustafa – a 20-year old who ran from the war in Sudan – was detained.
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From Ayia he was transferred to a camp outside Athens known as Amygdaleza, rows of grey prefabricated huts in a parched clearing surrounded by tall fences and security cameras.
“We are living here like a prison,” Mustafa told me, when I managed to make contact by phone. “They don’t allow us to move. We don’t have clothes or shoes. Our situation is very bad.”
Lawyers who have visited Amygdaleza confirm his account, describing recent arrivals walking barefoot on baking hot soil and receiving minimal information. Ordinarily, Sudanese citizens would be granted asylum in Europe.
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From Ayia he was transferred to a camp outside Athens known as Amygdaleza, rows of grey prefabricated huts in a parched clearing surrounded by tall fences and security cameras.
“We are living here like a prison,” Mustafa told me, when I managed to make contact by phone. “They don’t allow us to move. We don’t have clothes or shoes. Our situation is very bad.”
Lawyers who have visited Amygdaleza confirm his account, describing recent arrivals walking barefoot on baking hot soil and receiving minimal information. Ordinarily, Sudanese citizens would be granted asylum in Europe.