IV. Background The Geography of Migration: the Greek Gateway to the EU Routes of irregular migration are constantly shifting; as immigration enforcement measures stiffen in one area migrants and smugglers probe and test for other soft points of entry. But two factors rarely change—the political boundaries that delineate international borders and the topography that makes one frontier porous and another impenetrable. Not only because Greece stretches into the eastern Mediterranean, but also because it has 1,17o kilometers of land borders and 18,400 kilometers of coastline, including islands in close proximity to Turkey, Greece is likely to remain an attractive entry point into the EU. With an eastern frontier bounded by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea in the North and the Mediterranean in the south, Turkey effectively funnels migrants traveling overland from the Middle East and South Asia into Greece, while Africans are increasingly coming to Greece via Egypt. Increase in Apprehensions Stiffened interdiction measures in the western and central Mediterranean since 2005 appear to have contributed to shifting irregular migration routes toward Greece. While the number of irregular boat arrivals to Spain dropped by 53.9 percent from 2006 to 2007,4 irregular boat arrivals to Greece increased by 267 percent during this same time period.5 At this same time when irregular boat arrivals to Greece were almost tripling, they were also decreasing in Italy and Malta.6 It is difficult to weigh all the variables for shifts in irregular migration patterns, but the rapporteur for the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population suggests that the shift away from Spain and Italy and toward Greece in 2007 was at least partly 4 In 2006, 39,180 persons arrived irregularly by boat in Spain. In 2007, this number dropped to 18,057. Morten Østergaard, “Europe’s ‘Boat people’: Mixed Migration Flows by Sea into Southern Europe,” report of the Rapporteur to the Committee on Migration, Refugees, and Population, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, July 11, 2008. (“Europe’s ‘Boat People’”). 5 Statistics on Greek Coast Guard apprehensions from Human Rights Watch interview with Konstantinos Gialelis, Lieutenant Hellenic Coast Guard, Ministry of Mercantile Marine, Intelligence Directorate, Illegal Migration Division, June 5, 2008. 6 “Europe’s ‘Boat People,’” p. 8, paras 20 and 21. In 2006 Italy received 22,016 irregular boat people and in 2007 this number dropped to 19,617. Malta’s number of irregular boat arrivals decreased from 1,780 in 2006 to 1,715 in 2007. However, as this report is being written, the numbers of boat arrivals were again rising in Italy with a doubling of new arrivals in the first half of 2008 compared to the same time period of the previous year. (Migration News Sheet, September 2008, p. 13.) 19 Human Rights Watch November 2008