Turkey says these refugees were on board an inflatable boat and were pushed back into Turkish waters by Greek forces.

Turkish media reported on Tuesday, April 9^th, that all these Afghan refugees lacked residency documents.

Since the regime change in August 2021 in Afghanistan, the majority of Afghan immigrants have opted to leave the country for Iran and Turkey, aiming to reach European countries in pursuit of a better life. Upon arrival in Iran and Turkey, they encounter various challenges such as mistreatment, deportation, and hostility.

Many Afghan migrants depart their homeland due to a scarcity of job prospects, limited access to education, and the prohibition on girls’ education and employment opportunities for women and girls in Afghanistan.

The Turkish Coast Guard detained over a hundred Afghan refugees in March of 2023.

Reports indicate that detention, deportation, and mistreatment of undocumented migrants including Afghans in Turkey have increased.

The Turkish Ministry of Interior has announced an increase in inspection stops and mobile patrols in various cities across Turkey to identify and detain “illegal” migrants.

Turkish media reported on Thursday that Oğuzkan Yılmaz, the mayor of the town of Uşak in Turkey, has warned that if Afghan and Syrian refugees in this small town make the slightest mistake, they will be expelled.

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Through an on-the-ground assessment in the village of Agia Paraskevi, near Mount Panitha, evidence of the human toll of Greece’s ongoing wildfire crisis was observed firsthand.

Additional interviews provided further context. Local resident Nikos had mounted a preventative defense for two days, utilizing limited water resources in a seemingly futile effort to safeguard his assets. His reluctance to evacuate without coercion reflects the deep social and economic roots many have established in such rural settings.

Situational reports from emergency responders shed light on the challenges posed by various environmental factors exacerbating fire conditions. Temporary daylight suppression aided by aerial support is impeded at night, while shifting winds undermine containment attempts. These dynamics hamper efficiency and endanger personnel.

Analyzing the cumulative physical impacts and resiliency issues is likewise instructive. Acute health hazards stem from reduced air quality, while longer-term ecological disruption elevates vulnerability to climatic stresses. Remarks from experts in related fields validate the validity of such risk projections.

Investigative findings implicating arson in some ignition points warrants further social analysis of motivational drivers. Stakeholder discussions will be critical to comprehensively addressing this multifaceted crisis challenging Greece on humanitarian, economic and policy levels for the foreseeable future. Adaptive responses necessitate a holistic, evidence-based approach.

This intensive wildfire season underscores the shared vulnerability of rural and urban populations to climate-linked disasters, as well as the vulnerabilities inherent in traditional lifeways increasingly stressed by environmental changes.

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When Naeem read the news about the shipwreck off Greece’s Pylos, “I felt like my soul was going away”, he said.

He spent days trying to find information about his brother’s whereabouts.

He has received no official confirmation, but believes that Hameedullah and his three-year-old son Afaq Ahmed are among hundreds feared dead.

Naeem said Hameedullah left Pakistan with Afaq, hoping of building a safer, more stable future.

His wife had been killed a year earlier in armed violence.

“In Pakistan, you have to leave the country for so many reasons. There is no rule of law,” said Naeem.

The brothers had discussed many options but felt that a boat to Europe was the only option.

“I have read that 385 people from Pakistan died,” said Naeem. “But it’s not just that 385 people died, it’s 385 families that are completely devastated and hopeless.”

The trawler that sank off the coast of Pylos was carrying up to 750 people travelling from Libya towards Italy.

Most on board were from Pakistan. Dozens hailed from Syria, Egypt and Palestine.

Pakistan’s interior minister has said about 350 Pakistanis were on board. The Greek coastguard has found only 104 survivors and confirmed 82 deaths.

More than 10 days later, at least 500 people are still missing, leaving families around the world without answers, reflecting on the last conversations they had with their loved ones.

Saeed Anwer described his older brother Abdul Jabbar as “soft hearted”.

“He was so nice to everyone,” Anwer said over WhatsApp from Pakistan. “Everyone wanted to talk with him.”

Abdul Jabbar and his three cousins – Sajid Yousaf, Awais Asif and Tuqeer Parwez – left their village near Kotli in the Azad Kashmir territory in Pakistan, desperately hoping to provide financial stability.

But their families are now in mourning.

“They left because of poverty, because of the conflict in Kashmir there are no job opportunities,” said their uncle, Ramzan Jarral, over a WhatsApp video call, standing in front of their roofless cinder block house.

He said the family does not have the resources to build a roof.

Abdul Jabbar spoke with his family frequently over WhatsApp as he waited in Libya for a boat to depart.

He told his uncle he was worried about the journey, but maintained a determined optimism.

Anwer said in their last conversation, that Abdul Jabbar asked him to care for his family, especially his two young daughters.

His wife Yasra is pregnant with a third child.

“He said ‘Pray for me that I reach safely my destination’,” said Anwer.

When the family heard the news of the shipwreck, they were stricken with shock. They do not know how they will repay the money the cousins borrowed to pay for the journey. And they feel enormous pain.

“It is very, very difficult for us as a family,” said Jarral.

“Whenever there is a phone ringing, we are thinking that someone may have good news. We are going through this suffering 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This situation I hope no one will face in this entire world.”

‘There is nothing in Kobane. It is a place at war’

Bozan Sikri Usi’s family is grieving, too.

His 18-year-old son Ahmed Bozan Usi is missing, as well as his two relatives Welid Muhammed Kasim and Hemmude Fayzi Seyhi. The family is from Kobane, Syria.

“We never thought of him going to Europe. But the conditions here forced us to do so,” said Usi. “There is nothing in Kobane. It is a place at war. There is no education.”

Usi said he last spoke to his son on June 10.

Ahmed said smugglers pressured him to give $500 more than the $4,000 they had already paid in order to leave Libya.

“I said, ‘Son, let’s give them $500 more and they will take you away’,” said Usi. “I wished him good luck and then we never heard from him again.”

Muhammed Muhammed Kasim’s 14-year-old son Welid Muhammed Kasim was also in the group travelling from Kobane.

His father said he was hoping his son could get a better education in Europe. He is now missing.

Kasim last spoke to his young son on June 9. Kasim said Welid asked for his father’s prayers and they said goodbye.

“We are still crying day and night,” said Kasim. “Our 14-year-old son had seen so many difficulties, endured them all, but he couldn’t reach where he wanted. We don’t know if he is alive or dead. All we want is to get some information. This is what burns our hearts and makes our pain grow.”

Kasim is left with questions.

“We hope they are alive and in hospital. Is there a possibility?” he asked. “Could Italy have helped them, could Italy have taken them?”

Ebdu Seyhi’s two brothers Hemmude Fayzi Seyhi and Ali Seyhi were on board the ship. They were hoping to escape the violence in Kobane, though they knew the journey was dangerous.

“I mean, if you stay, you die, but if you go you also die,” said Seyhi. “You see fleeing as the only chance to continue living.”

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Hundreds of residents and tourists have been evacuated from the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos after forest fires, which broke out yesterday, destroyed homes and threatened villages.

Greece is currently in the grips of a heat wave with temperatures of 42°C expected in some regions. The extreme weather is forecast to last 10 days, raising fears of other fires.

In the north of the country, firefighters and volunteers are battling — for the fourth consecutive day —  a fierce fire in the Dadia National Park, a protected nature reserve, known for its colony of vultures.

This fire forced the evacuation of the village of Dadia Saturday evening, while residents of Chrysokelari in the Peloponnese had to flee blazes near Koroni.

Extreme weather events, such as forest fires and heatwaves, are becoming more frequent and intense because of human-induced climate change.

Experts have warned that these trends will continue to worsen and grow more severe unless people and governments around the world make significant cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions.

On the island of Lesbos, the fire, which started in the mountainous forests to the west of the island, has spread on two fronts. One towards the village of Vrisa, the other towards the beach resort of Vatera, where at least four homes have been damaged.

Both fires are still raging, as of Sunday.

Strong winds in the area are making it harder for emergency services to extinguish the flames.

“We are battling to save homes,” Taxiarchis Verros, mayor of western Lesbos, told the Greek broadcaster.

81 firefighters with 19 vehicles, 5 civil groups, 9 aircraft and 1 helicopter tried to extinguish the blaze on Saturday. One firefighter was injured, according to regional governor Kostas Moutzouris.

On the advice of the emergency services, Verros ordered the evacuation of the bustling resort town of Vatera as a precautionary measure. An evacuation message was issued by Greece’s 112 Emergency Communications Service to those in the area.

Hundreds of people, including many tourists, have been evacuated from the island, with several buses and small boats were taking part in the operation.

Vatera, an 8 km (5 mile) long sandy beach in the southern part of Lesbos, is a popular tourist attraction.

On Sunday, firefighters were still struggling to bring a raging fire in Dadia National Park under control.

The nature reserve is described by the park’s management as “one of the most important protected areas at national, European and international level” in the Evros region, northeastern Greece.

Emergency services in the area said that the thick smoke released by the fire prevented firefighting planes from intervening and making it difficult to control the blaze.

A wildfire in mountains near Athens earlier this week damaged homes and forced several hundreds of people to flee, with authorities calling this summer one of the toughest in the Mediterranean.

Last year, wildfires ravaged about 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) of forest and bushland across Greece during the country’s worst heatwave in 30 years

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A ceremony was held at the airbase to mark their arrival, in which a Greek priest blessed the jets and their pilots.

The Rafale mark a turning point in Greek defense capabilities, defense experts say, because they carry more advanced targeting and weaponry than anything seen in the Aegean theatre until now.

“They have very advanced [surveillance], possibly greater than 100km [62 miles], in the form of a camera that scans for the thermal signature of other aircraft,” said Konstantinos Grivas, who teaches weapons systems at the Hellenic Army Academy.

“Unlike radar, this doesn’t let the enemy know when they’ve been spotted because it’s not emitting a beam,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The most important thing of all is this plane comes with the Meteor air-to-air missile, which is currently considered the best of its kind in the Western arsenal. Its range is officially 120km (75 miles), but it is thought that it can be as much as 150km (93km).

“These six planes can unleash a very large firepower without the enemy knowing they’re even there.”

Greek pilots and technicians have spent a year training on the aircraft in France, so they will enter service immediately.

The Metropolitan of Thebes and Livadeia blesses the newly arrived Rafale fleet 
and their pilots [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]

Greece’s air force is among the most active in NATO because Greek pilots are constantly intercepting Turkish F-16 fighter jets performing incursions into its airspace or overflying Greek islands.

Defence Minister Nikos Panayotopoulos told Al Jazeera that Rafale would be doing more important work. “It’s not a weapon we have for daily interceptions over the Aegean, it’s a strategic weapon,” he said.

Pilot Theodoros Christodoulou offered an idea of what Rafale missions might involve. “In older aircraft, if the radar locked on a target, only that radar was locked on it. Here … one aircraft can pass on its information to another,” he told Al Jazeera.

Grivas calls this capability of being an eye in the sky and passing on targeting information to other air, naval and land-based assets a “force multiplier”. Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Konstantinos Floros told Al Jazeera this networking capability across branches of the Greek military was already up and running.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis welcomes the aircraft as the linchpin of a 
new Greek-French relationship [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]

Greece placed a fast-track order for 18 Rafale jets and weapons systems for 2.32 billion euros ($2.63bn) just 16 months ago. Parliament ratified the contracts in January 2021.

Dassault Aviation, which makes the aircraft, sold Greece six new aircraft that were already in production for Egypt. Greece is to receive six used planes from the French air force this year, and six next year. It has also ordered an additional six new aircraft to make up a squadron of 24.

Greece last year also ordered three state-of-the-art Belharra frigates from France’s Naval Group for an estimated 3 billion euros ($3.4bn). The Belharra and Rafale purchases underpin an unprecedented intra-NATO mutual defense treaty Greece and France signed last October.

“The Rafale renders our air force one of the most powerful in Europe and the Mediterranean, which promotes the flexibility of our national diplomacy and our broader alliances,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

“And it seals the Greek-French defensive compact, and gives new breath to the prospect of a European strategic autonomy.”

A pilot climbs out of the cockpit of a two-seater Rafale 
[John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]

Turkey’s population is eight times Greece’s and its military is the largest in NATO after that of the United States. Greece cannot compete in size. Unlike Turkey, which is building up its own defense industry using relatively simple technology, Greece has sought a leap to high technology through a strategic relationship with France.

“Many Turkish analysts don’t consider Greece to be Turkey’s rival. Rather they consider France as the competitor in the East Mediterranean,” said Ioannis Grigoriadis, who teaches European studies at Bilkent University in Ankara.

“So France’s decision to reinforce Greece’s defense with the Rafale is seen as a French decision to put pressure on Turkey using technology Turkey doesn’t have … Greece has access to weaponry that balances out Turkey’s numerical superiority. That allows Greece to speak as an equal to its neighbor.”

Greece and Turkey flirted with armed conflict in 1974, 1987 and 1996. They almost came to blows in August 2020, when a Turkish frigate came close to ramming a Greek one and was heavily damaged in the process.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated since 2017, mainly because of disagreement over how to demarcate territorial waters and rights to undersea mineral resources. Exploratory talks to solve the issue resumed last year after a five-year hiatus, but have not led to an agreement.

The Rafale overfly the runway [John Psaropoulos/Al Jazeera]

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Omer Celik, the spokesperson for the Justice and Development (AK) Party, said Greece’s illegal pushback of migrants is the main reason behind the recent rise in migrant deaths in the Aegean Sea. He accused the European countries of ignoring it.

“Greece’s persistent pushback policy, which is facilitated by the EU’s Frontex (border and coast guard agency) led to migrants to change their route to more dangerous and longer Italian route,” he told reporters following the party’s executive board meeting in the capital Ankara.

Turkey and human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greece’s illegal practice of pushing back asylum seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children.

Russia-Ukraine tension

Regarding the ongoing tension between Russia and Ukraine, Celik said Turkey attaches great importance to peace and stability in the Black Sea.

“We hope that a ground, which would preserve the territorial integrity of Ukraine and clear concerns of both NATO and Russia, will be established,” he said.

Russia has recently amassed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine’s border. The move has prompted concerns among NATO allies that Russia could be planning another military offensive against its ex-Soviet neighbor.

The US and its European allies are accusing Russia of trying to destabilize the country by providing military support to the separatist forces in Ukraine’s eastern regions.

Turkey-Armenia normalization

Also addressing the normalization of ties between Turkey and Armenia, Celik said Turkey’s special envoy Serdar Kilic will soon meet with his Armenian counterpart to discuss the process.

If things went well with the normalization of the relations, which Azerbaijan has consented to and supported, Turkey and Armenia would resume charter flights as one of the steps of the process, he said.

“We hope that Armenia would give up with expansionist policies and act as a part of the mechanism that would contribute to stability in the southern Caucasus,” Celik remarked.

On Dec. 15, Turkey appointed Kilic, a former ambassador to the US, as its special envoy to discuss steps for normalization with Armenia. Three days later, Armenia also appointed its special representative for dialogue with Turkey, National Assembly Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan.

Delayed Libyan presidential election

On the latest developments in Libya, including the postponement of the presidential polls previously scheduled to be held on Dec. 24, Celik reiterated that Turkey supports just, free and legitimate elections which would take the country out of instability.

“Turkey expects whoever emerges victorious from the elections to represent the whole country,” he added.

On Monday, the Libyan parliament proposed postponing the country’s presidential elections by six months.

Libyan rival parties have been in disagreement over the voting timetable for the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held simultaneously or one after the other.

Libyans hope that the upcoming elections will contribute to ending an armed conflict that has plagued the oil-rich country for years.

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