http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/03/pakistan-sends-deported-migrants-back-to-greece-eu#_=_
Pakistan sends deported migrants back to Greece
In latest flare-up of tension between EU and Islamabad, Pakistan rejects
31 people it says were illegally returned
The Greek charter plane arriving at Benazir Bhutto international airport
in Islamabad.
The Greek charter plane arriving at Benazir Bhutto international airport
in Islamabad. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Jon Boone in Islamabad
Thursday 3 December 2015 16.55 GMT
Last modified on Thursday 3 December 2015 18.10 GMT
Thirty-one migrants made a round trip from Greece to Pakistan on
Thursday after the government in Islamabad said the EU had illegally
deported them.
Although 19 out of the 50 deportees who came in on a charter plane were
taken into custody in Pakistan, the remainder stayed on board for almost
two hours before returning to Greece after the government said they did
not have the correct paperwork.
It was the latest salvo in a row between the EU and Chaudhry Nisar Ali
Khan, the Pakistani interior minister angry about the treatment of his
compatriots by European states struggling with a migrant crisis.
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“Pakistani laws have been violated, which absolutely cannot be allowed,”
Khan said in a statement.
The issue has been a running source of tension with the EU. In early
November Khan suspended an agreement on readmitting illegal detainees,
saying two EU states were sending Pakistanis home on “baseless terrorism
charges”.
“Those who give lectures on fundamental rights to us should also respect
fundamental rights of Pakistanis,” he said at the time.
Last week Dimitris Avramopoulos, a Greek politician and the EU
commissioner responsible for migration policy, visited Pakistan to try
to soothe concerns.
But on Thursday Pakistan said the EU was still not honouring pledges to
only return those whose identity had been confirmed, saying the men
flown back to Greece were “unverified deportees”.
The EU office in Islamabad said all 50 people on the flight organised by
Frontex, the agency in charge of Europe’s borders, had been given
passports to travel by the Pakistani embassies in Greece, Bulgaria and
Austria.
It said Pakistan’s demand that the migrants should also have their
national identity card numbers was impossible for EU officials to
organise and that it was not part of the agreement struck with Pakistan.
“The list of names [of the deportees] had been sent to the Pakistani
authorities earlier, providing sufficient time to the relevant Pakistani
authorities to find the missing numbers for the returnees,” the EU said.
Last year, about 21,000 Pakistanis who were in Europe without permission
were ordered to return home. An estimated 50,000 Pakistanis travel
legally to Europe for work each year.
Clashes erupted on the Greek-Macedonian border on Tuesday when
Macedonian police fired teargas to repel hundreds of mostly Pakistani
migrants trying to push through a new border fence.
Some of them later blocked the crossing for Syrians and others who would
have been let in as war refugees. “If we don’t cross, no one does!” they
chanted.
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