UNB/ AP, Piraeus
Clutching an English phrase book, Mohammed Sawadi is preparing to head north.
The 23-year-old university student traveled from Damascus with his two cousins. They knew Greece’s borders were closed before leaving home but say nothing will stop them getting to northern Europe.
“We made a vow: We will get to Europe, and we will stay together,” said Sawadi, wearing a Batman T-shirt and holding a map of central Athens.
The three cousins crossed Turkey before reaching the Greek island of Chios and taking a ferry to Piraeus, the country’s largest mainland port, near Athens. Sawadi wants to join his brother in Germany and eventually settle in The Netherlands.
European leaders are determined that they won’t make it out of Greece any time soon.
The country’s borders were sealed off to migrants and refugees a week ago and NATO expanded patrols in the eastern Aegean Sea — and waited for signs that the number of arrivals was beginning to slow. It’s not yet clear if that is happening: From an average of 2,000 arrivals per day at Greek islands facing Turkey so far this year, the numbers have become more uneven. The daily number stayed below 1,000 most of the past week, but spiked to 3,340 on Wednesday, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. About half of those arriving are from Syria, with the rest mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq.