Greece has stopped the processing of asylum applications in North Africa in response to an increase in the number of migrants.
According to Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the conservative prime minister, boat arrivals from the area would be detained and imprisoned.
He added that Greece was “sending a message of determination … to all traffickers and all their potential clients that the money they spend can be completely wasted, because it will be difficult to reach Greece by sea.”
“This emergency situation requires emergency response measures.”
Mitsotakis added that the provisions would be based on the same legal reasoning that Greece requested in 2020 to prevent thousands of people from crossing the land border with Türkiye.
The draft legislation will be presented to Parliament on Thursday.
“Clear message: Stay where are you, we don't accept you,” said Migration Minister Thanos Plevris in X.
The announcement follows a considerable increase in migrant arrivals in the South Islands of Crete and Gavdos.
More than 2,000 migrants landed in Crete in recent days, and another 520 were rescued in their early coast on Wednesday, which took the total number from the beginning of 2025 to 9,000.
This was an increase of 350% since last year, said the president of the Association of Coast Guard of Crete Occidental, Vasilis Katsikandarakis. “Immigration is suffocating us … Our staff is literally on knees,” he said.
According to ERT public broadcaster, the authorities in Crete are under significant logistics tension as the rhythm and scale of arrivals continue to exceed the capacity of the available accommodation infrastructure.
Several hundred people have had to temporarily placed themselves in a suffocating market, local media said, adding that among North Africa migrants are 30 families with young children and babies.
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