Tensions rise as EU prepares to 'scale up' deportations

The European Union's top migration official on Wednesday said the block would soon "scale up" the number of refugees deported after the first group war returned to Turkey from Greece this week as part of a new, controversial deal.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU's migration commissioner, told reporters in Brussels the expulsions had only just begun and the numbers were still "very low."

"I believe in the course of time we will scale up," he said. "It's a good start."

Tensions have mounted in recent days as a following the start of the EU-Turkey accord. Under the deal, the EU will take in thousands of Syrian refugees from Turkey and provide the country with financial aid, visa-free travel and speedier EU membership negotiations in return for Turkey taking migrants and refugees deported from Greece.

Well over a million migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe over the past year. 

Human rights groups have decried the deal. Among their many complaints is that Turkey, where many people are being sent, isn't the safe haven for migrants and refugees it is supposed to be.

Reports in recent weeks have alleged that Turkey is forcibly returning refugees to Syria while shooting and killing Syrians trying to enter the country.

Human rights groups have urged the EU to open new, safe legal channels for asylum seekers who need protection to get it in Europe.

Avramopoulos said the European Commission was working to develop such pathways.

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But isn't happening fast enough. While the number of migrants and refugees slowed significantly since Monday, when the deal came into effect, many people were still trying to cross the Aegean to Greece from Turkey, and the thousands already there were growing increasingly restless.

More than 53,000 migrants and refugees are estimated to be currently stranded in Greece. For at least one desperate migrant, death seemed a better alternative than deportation. 

As politicians were meeting in Brussels, a Pakistani man stuck in the Moria registration center and trapped behind fencing and razor wire on the Greek Island of Lesbos threatened to hang himself with a scarf from a utility pole so he wouldn't be sent back to his home country, Reuters reported.

It happened during a protest staged by migrants against the EU's deal with Turkey. Little is known about the man. A series of photographs captured by a photographer from Turkey's Anadolu Agency showed he climbed the pole with the scarf on his head before pulling it off and wrapping it around the pole and his neck.

He appears to have done this while a crowd below pleaded with him to stop. But before he was able to carry out the act, another man climbed up to wrest him free from the noose.

Credit: AYHAN MEHMET/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGEs

Eventually he did, and with the help of a security officer was able to convince the man to climb down.

Credit: Ayhan Mehmet/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The disturbing incident was not the first of its kind. Two migrant men attempted to hang themselves in Athens' central Victoria Square in February, The Telegraph reported. Both survived and were taken to a nearby hospital. They also were reported to be Pakistani migrants.

On Wednesday night, a group of refugees gathered in front of the Greek Parliament building in Athens to denounce the country's inaction.

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A small group of refugees staged a sit-in in Syntagma Square, a location that has become synonymous with the Greek protest movement in recent years. They were met by a excpetionally large police force equipped with riot helmets and shields, according to photos and videos from the scene. 

Footage shows riot police surrounding the small crowd of men women and children.

The group had travelled to central Athens from Piraeus, a port on the outskirts of the city where hundreds of refugees and migrants have been living in a makeshift camp.

But the sit-in in Syntagma square was short-lived, as riot police quickly returned the protesting group to the nearby subway and sent them back to the makeshift camp in Piraeus.

Now, along with the others stuck in Greece, they must simply wait and wonder what is to come next. 

Additional reporting by Megan Specia.

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