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Greek authorities are reportedly attempting to stop refugees arriving on Aegean islands from boarding ferries to the mainland as a humanitarian crisis continues to build.
Travel agents on Lesbos and Leros told aid workers they were instructed not to allow asylum seekers to buy tickets for public ferries on Thursday.
Thousands of asylum seekers are still crossing from Turkey every day but border restrictions in Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and other nations on the Balkans route to western Europe is creating a huge backlog in Greece.
Thousands of refugees stranded on Greece-Macedonia border Up to 30,000 refugees are believed to be trapped in the country, with many sleeping rough in parks and city squares as shelters overflow.
Gemma Gillie, from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told The Independent t hat Greek authorities attempted to be intensifying efforts to slow arrivals to the mainland.
On Friday, ferry companies were asked to reduce services and ships chartered by the Government were docked in Lesbos, Chios and Samos with no indication of when they would depart.
They are being used as emergency accommodation until refugees can be transferred to mainland Greece, with numbers mounting every day.
“Travel agencies are not being allowed to issue any tickets to refugees,” Ms Gillie said. “There are 16,000 people in Idomeni (near the Macedonian border) are they are trying to stop more people coming.”
Show all 70 1 /70The refugee crisis - in pictures The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian refugee holding a baby in a lifetube swims towards the shore after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos
The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee raises a child into the air as Syrian and Afghan refugees are seen on and around a dinghy that deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos
The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian and Afghan refugees fall into the sea after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos
The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee cries as he holds a child on the Serbian side of the border with Hungary in Asotthalom
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos aboard an inflatable dinghy across the Aegean Sea from from Turkey. Greece sent troops and police reinforcements to Lesbos after renewed clashes between police and migrants, the public broadcaster said, while Syrian refugees on the island were targeted with Molotov cocktail attacks
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian refugees on the Greek Macedonian border
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees who have just crossed the border from Serbia into Hungary walk along a railway track that joins the two countries, August 2015
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Police arrest refugees at Cobham Services on the M25 in Surrey, August 2015
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men hold a boy as they are stuck between Macedonian riot police officers and fellow refugees during a clash near the border train station of Idomeni, August 2015
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian father holds his children close as his arrives on the Greek Island of Kos, August 2015
Eyevine
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PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images
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GIOVANNI ISOLINO/AFP/Getty Images
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The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Afghan refugees arrive on a beach of Kos, May 2015
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MSF aid workers have been told that even when asylum seekers are allowed on public ferries again, possibly on Sunday, a quota of 200 per boat will be imposed and Greeks and tourists given priority.
Even when refugees reach the border, the neighbouring country’s policy of only allowing Syrians and Iraqis through is stranding around 35 per cent of arrivals, causing protests and clashes with police.
The government said it was imposing last week’s ferry restrictions in order to build more temporary shelters but there were fears the move will deepen the humanitarian crisis on Aegean islands still seeing between one and five thousand people arrive every day in flimsy smugglers' boats from Turkey.
Boris Cheshirkov, a spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Lesbos, said around 4,000 refugees were currently on the island and that the situation was currently under control.
“We’ve had around 1,000 people arrive in the last 24 hours,” he added. “In the last two months we’ve had about 70,000 and we didn’t reach that until the first six months last year.”
A Greek coastguard helps a migrant child to disembark, at the port of Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey He said Greek authorities were “stepping up” to the challenge but said the European Union must do more to share responsibility to avoid a looming humanitarian crisis.
Greece's Prime Minister has called for sanctions to be imposed on EU states that refuse to take in their share of the hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving in his country.
Alexis Tsipras also demanded that the practically dormant “hot spot” procedure for relocating refugees stranded in Greece to other EU members should be drastically speeded up.
Speaking after a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk in Athens on Thursday, he promised to provide “dignified” living conditions for those trapped in Greece after other countries further north along the migration route to Western Europe imposed sweeping entry restrictions.
But he insisted that the solution can only be temporary and Greece will accept only its fair share of permanently resettled refugees.
More than 135,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year , with at least 400 drowning in the attempt.
Additional reporting by AP
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