Greece has been hit by a disastrous flow of illegal immigration from chaos caused by the revolutionary wave of demonstrations, protests, and wars from North Africa to South and Central Asia, the country’s Athens’ Ambassador to the United States Christos Panagopoulos told The Washington Times.
The paper reported that he said, “For a country of 10.11 million, to have one million, most of them illegal in a period of hardship and economic crisis, it’s devastating.” That comes as Greece is suffering a crushing economic crisis and imposing austerity measures which have worsened the country’s six-year recession and caused a record 26.8 percent unemployment.
Panagopoulos noted that most of the illegal immigrants derive from countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya and Syria, which are in an unstable political and economic situation. Most of them managed to enter Greece by sneaking through the Greek-Turkish borders. “Most of these people do not see Greece as their final destination,” he said.
“They are not Greece because they know there is an economic crisis. They use Greece as a transit to other European countries and eventually to Germany, which is where most of them hope to get to,” he said. “Greece cannot afford this burden by itself,” he added. “If you reside in France or the Nordic countries, you will think, ‘Oh, it’s a bad thing, but it doesn’t affect me,” he said.
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