Turkey warns 3 mln more refugees may be headed to EU from Syria
Turkey has warned the European Union that 3 million more refugees could flee fighting in Syria as the EU struggles to manage its biggest migration emergency in decades.
Around 2 million refugees from Syria are currently in Turkey, and tens of thousands of others have entered the EU via Greece this year, overwhelming coast guards and reception facilities.
EU Council President Donald Tusk told lawmakers Tuesday that “according to Turkish estimates, another 3 million potential refugees may come from Aleppo and its neighborhood.”
Tusk said that “today millions of potential refugees and migrants are dreaming about Europe.”
He warned that “the world around us does not intend to help Europe” and that some of the EU's neighbors “look with satisfaction at our troubles.”
Meanwhile, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann was heading to the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos with Greece's prime minister to view first-hand the impact of the refugee crisis and tour the facilities set up to handle the new arrivals, which number in the hundreds and sometimes thousands every day.
Faymann and Greece's Alexis Tsipras were due on Lesvos around midday Tuesday and are to tour the reception center set up to register and process the arriving refugees and migrants.
About 400,000 people have arrived in Greece so far this year, most in small overcrowded boats from the nearby Turkish coast. The vast majority don't want to stay in the financially troubled country and head north through the Balkans to more prosperous European Union countries such as Austria, Germany and Sweden.
[AP]
