EU Border Agency Frontex Extends Rapid Intervention In Greece Until July

The European Union's border and coast guard agency Frontex will extend its rapid intervention in Greece and provide additional officers and equipment until July, the organization announced on Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st May, 2020) The European Union's border and coast guard agency Frontex will extend its rapid intervention in Greece and provide additional officers and equipment until July, the organization announced on Thursday.

"#Frontex has agreed to extend its rapid border interventions in Greece until the beginning of July. We will continue to support Greece in protecting Europe's land and sea borders with additional officers and equipment #EuropeanBorderGuard," the border agency said on Twitter.

Frontex launched the rapid intervention on the land border between Greece and Turkey on March 13, amid a rapid uptick in the number of migrants attempting to cross the border in the wake of the escalation of violence in Syria's Idlib province.

At that time, Ankara stated that it could no longer restrict the movement of migrants from heading towards the Greek border.

As part of the intervention, an additional 100 EU border guards were deployed at the Greece-Turkey land border after a request was made by Athens.

In a May report, Frontex stated that the number of detections of illegal border crossings into the European Union had fallen by 85 percent from March to April amid the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic.

The border agency detected 26,650 illegal border crossings in the first four months of this year, which it stated was a similar number to the same period in 2019.