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Activists plunge into sea in bid to block deportations

by Our Foreign Desk

ACTIVISTS dived into the sea yesterday in an effort to stop the deportation of 124 refugees from the Greek island of Lesbos to Turkey.

Before the first ferry carrying 45 refugees left the island, the four jumped into the water, swam to the front of the chartered ferry and grabbed the anchor chain. They were detained by the coastguard.

The second ship made the journey to the nearby Turkish port of Dikili without incident.

The deportations are part of the much-criticised European Union-Turkey deal under which those who do not qualify for asylum will be sent to Turkey, while an equal number of exclusively Syrian refugees will be flown to other EU countries.

Until yesterday, the expulsions had been suspended for four days after it emerged that most of the refugees stranded in squalid camps on the islands of Lesbos and Chios had applied for asylum.

An anonymous Turkish official said those deported were mainly Afghans and Pakistanis, but there were also four Iraqis, an Egyptian, a Moroccan, a Bangladeshi and a Palestinian among them.

He added that 1,000 doctors, migration officials and police were deployed in Dikili ready to receive far higher numbers of deportees.

Amnesty International, which spoke to dozens of detainees on Chios and Lesbos, said people were being held “arbitrarily in appalling conditions.”

“A set-up that is so flawed, rushed and ill-prepared is ripe for mistakes, trampling the rights and wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable people,” said Amnesty deputy Europe director Gauri van Gulik.

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