Copin ng with a fundam mental rights emeergency – The situ uation of people crossing the Greeek border in an iirregular mannerr Maain find dings "Th he humanitaarian situatiion of migrants and assylum seekeers in Greecce is extrem mely wo orrying. Improving the reception faacilities is very urgent. The Greek authorities are benefiting from m European ssolidarity thrrough a packkage of finan ncial and praactical assistaance m to put all necessary n meeasures in plaace to assist the persons in need. Greeece and I urge them pt the legislation reformiing its nation nal asylum system s so th hat a alsso needs to swiftly adop susstainable situ uation can bee found to th his emergenccy." mmissioner fo or Home Affaairs, Brusselss, 15 Decemb ber 2010 Cecilia Malmström, EU Com Mig gration tre ends Greeece is an EU Member State with exten nsive sea and d land bordeers with third d countries: TTurkey, Albaania and thee Former Yuggoslav Republic of Maceedonia (FYRO OM). Since tthe early 19 990s, a o persons sseeking interrnational pro otection and irregular migrants crosss these signiificant flow of bord ders: some o of them (primarily Albanians) seek to remain iin Greece, w while many others attem mpt to reach other EU Member Staates, either through t the sea route to Italy or th he land route via FYROM M and Serbia or o via Albania, Croatia an nd Slovenia. other southeern EU The strengthening of bordeer surveillancce and otheer measuress taken by o mber States led to a siggnificant redu uction of arrivals in Italy, Malta and d Spain. Miggration Mem routes into the EEU changed targeting firstt the sea and d then the lan nd border beetween Greeece and ders accountted for 90% of all detections of Turkkey. In 2010, Greek exterrnal EU land and sea bord irreggular border crossing alo ong all EU exxternal land and sea borrders. Crossings at the eastern e bord der in the Evrros region reeached peakss as high as 350 3 persons a day. The m majority of p persons crosss the 12.5 km m land bordeer area near the city of O Orestiada, altthough recently the num mber of thosse coming thrrough the rivver has increaased. 12 January 2 2011, FRONTTEX reported d that since 2 June 201 10 over 38,0 000 undocum mented On 1 persons have beeen detecteed crossing the t Greek‐TTurkish land border. Thee largest gro oup of n, while thee other mosst numerous nationalities are persons (44%) ccomes from Afghanistan qi (4%). Algerians (16%), Pakistani (8.5%), Somali (6%) and Iraq The e humanitarian crissis at the e border The situation at the t land border with Turrkey and partticularly the living conditions in the ceentres, where those apprehended ccrossing thee border irreegularly are held, is worrisome. It ccreates t respect of o fundamen ntal rights, aas enshrined d in the Charter of crucial concerns regarding the damental Rigghts of the Eu uropean Unio on. Fund In 20 010, at leastt a recorded d 45 people lost their livves trying to cross the b border in thee Evros regio on: 26 of theem died with hin the operaational area o of Orestiada,, four at the banks of thee Evros riverr and 15 at ssea in the vicinity of Aleexandroupolis. In the firsst week of Jaanuary 2011 alone, 4