Greece deploys zeppelin to monitor migrant traffic

Greece will monitor its maritime border with a zeppelin that will fly over the island of Samos to find migrants travelling from Turkey.

The pilot project, which starts on Tuesday, aims to strengthen the protection of borders of the European Union. It will last 28 days, during which the ship will fly 24 hours a day and monitoring will be carried out in cooperation with the European Border Agency.

Migration Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos said the zeppelin would observe a large area and help discover ships trying to reach Greece from Turkey. The zeppelin will then inform the Turkish authorities, who will approach the vessel in question.

Koumoutsakos said, "there are no hot returns. Everything will be done in accordance with international law".

Some NGOs have accused Greek and Turkish Coast Guards of blocking the passage of some vessels that had reached European waters, stopping migrants and returning them to Turkey.

The Aegean Boat Report filed a complaint a week ago with a video in which Coast Guards from both countries collaborated to return a group of migrants to Turkey.

It's the first time that an EU member has used a zeppelin for this purpose, although it's not new in Greece, with one being used during the 2004 Olympic Games to monitor Athens, according to Efe news.

The airship, 35-metre-long, has a radar, an infrared camera and an automatic identification system, a mechanism by which the position of the vessels is reported to avoid collisions.

A zeppelin is an aircraft that flies using large gasbags filled with a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.

They were mainly used between 1900 and 1930, after that they lost popularity due to multiple accidents and development of airplanes.

Greece's government, headed by conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has announced a number of changes in migration policies since coming to power in early July.

New measures included acceleration of asylum exams and returns to Turkey, in a strict application of the joint statement between Ankara and Brussels.

Mitsotakis said he hoped to decongest the five islands of the Aegean, Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos, where over 16,000 asylum seekers lived, The camps could hold only 6,000 people.

( With inputs from IANS )