Europe: Caught in a political game: Asylum-seekers and migrants on the Greece/Turkey border pay the price for Europe’s failures

On 27 February 2020, the Turkish authorities announced that their western borders would be opened to asylum-seekers and migrants in the country wishing to leave. Families and individuals from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries rushed to the land border with Greece, in the belief that their borders were open. They were not. The response of the Greek authorities was categoric. Across the country, asylum applications were suspended for a month., Violent pushbacks were used at land borders against those trying to enter and some of those entering Greece irregularly faced prosecution and prison sentences.