Greece scrambles to implement 'Herculean' EU-Turkey migrant deal

Greek officials on Saturday worked feverishly on the huge task of implementing a EU-Turkey deal to stem the flow of refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere.

A key part of the agreement will go into effect Sunday when all migrants arriving on the Greek islands will be designated for return to Turkey, a Greek government official said.

Ahead of the deadline, officials said about 1,500 people crossed the Aegean to Greece's islands on Friday, more than double the number the day before and compared with just several hundred a day earlier this week.

In a sad reminder of the danger of the sea journey, a four-month-old baby drowned when a migrant boat sank off the Turkish coast Saturday hours before the deal came into force, Turkey's Anatolia agency reported.

The US views a deal as an "important step," the State Department said. "We strongly endorse action to shut down the illegal smuggling operations that prey on and exploit vulnerable migrants," State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement.

Hundreds of security and legal experts - 2,300 according to Greek premier Alexis Tsipras - are set to arrive in Greece to help with the task of enforcing the new migrant deal, described as "Herculean" by European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.

"The Greek side is ready but the implementation does not only depend on us," a Greek government source said, adding that the swift arrival of the extra personnel would be vital to its success.

Paris and Berlin alone have pledged to send 600 police and asylum experts to Greece as soon as Athens makes its needs clear, France and Germany's interior ministers Bernard Cazeneuve and Thomas de Maiziere said in a joint letter. 

As Europe battles to resolve its worst migration crisis since World War II, the deal with Ankara came under fire from rights groups. Several thousand anti-racism demonstrators across the continent protested against the accord on Saturday.

'Arrived in time'

In practice, the actual return of migrants to Turkey will begin 4 April, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a key backer of the scheme.

The numbers needing to be processed are daunting: As of Saturday officials said there were 47,500 migrants in Greece, including 8,200 on the islands and 10,500 massed at the Idomeni camp on the Macedonian border.

Under the Brussels deal agreed on Friday, for every Syrian refugee sent back from Greece, the EU will resettle one refugee directly from Turkey.

The aim is to stop the incentive for migrants to make the perilous trip from Turkey to the Greek islands.

Around 4,000 people including women and children have drowned crossing the Aegean in flimsy boats, including 400 this year alone.

Those already in Greece said they considered themselves fortunate.

"We were lucky to have arrived in time," said Fatima, a Syrian woman at the port of Lesbos on Saturday. 

With her 13-year-old daughter, she boarded along with 2,500 others a ferry bound for Kavala in northern Greece. Another ferry was also expected to leave from Chios island, Greek public television said.

"The authorities' goal is to empty the islands" where more than 8,000 migrants have been stuck since a series of border closures sealed the Balkan route to Europe, said Michele Telaro of the medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF).

'Blow to human rights'

Amnesty International has called the deal a "historic blow to human rights".

But EU officials have stressed that each application for asylum will be treated individually, with full rights of appeal and proper oversight.

In return for its cooperation, Turkey won an acceleration of its long-stalled bid for EU membership, a doubling of refugee aid to $6.8bn and visa-free travel for its nationals to Europe's Schengen passport-free zone by June.

The deal also envisages major aid for Greece, where tens of thousands of refugees are trapped in dire conditions after Balkan countries shut their borders.

At the squalid Idomeni border camp that a Greek minister described as "a modern-day Dachau," refugees pondered the reports of the new EU migrant deal and what step they should take next.

Having come from Damascus, 30-year-old Mohammed says he's ready to take a bus to Athens and enroll in the European scheme.

But another Syrian refugee Yasmine says she will continue to wait at the Macedonian border.

"They can't prevent us from joining our husbands who were able to enter Germany this summer," the former resident of Aleppo said, surrounded by her two children and two sisters.