The Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis spoke of a rapid increase of the illegal immigration phenomenon which has nothing to do with financial reasons but a search of salvation for people from Syria or Iraq.
In order to inform the public for the load that the Greek authorities, the Greek Coast Guard Officers as well as the Greek public are dealing with daily, Mr. Varvitsiotis called for a press conference today.

Among others, the Minister said that ” The Greek state wants to sent two very clear messages. Firstly, we cannot leave our borders out of control. We will continue to control the boarders in order to protect public security and health. However, he noted that ” we will not stop saving every human life in danger in the sea since the number of incidents of rescue occur are dramatically increased”.

According to him, the total amount of people that have been rescued so far since the first of January amounts to 6.500, among the 15.500 people which have crossed the Greek boarder from sea.
Further Mr. Varvitsiotis spoke of the country’s big success so far for the huge number of deportations. Finally he stated that the main target of Greece is to strengthen its relations with the Turkish authorities.