(2 Mar 2020) Thousands of migrants tried to find a way across Turkey's western border with Greece on Monday, with only dozens managing to pass through, after Turkey opened its side of the frontier to migrants and refugees to leave the country for Europe.
In Kastanies, a group of migrants from Iran were seen being picked up by a white van said to be a police vehicle and driven away.
Karimi Khalmahammad, a 22-year-old migrant from Afghanistan made it to Nea Vyssa and said he hoped to reach Germany.
A university student, Khalmahammad said he had spent time in a Taliban prison in Afghanistan.
Therose Ngonda, a 40-year-old woman from Cameroon, said she had made it into Greece by wading across the Evros river that runs along the two countries' border.
Speaking on Monday morning, her shoes still wet and mudded from the river crossing, she said she had been told the Turkey would open the gates for migrants and refugees for 72 hours from Friday.
She got on one of dozens of buses and minibuses that ferried people from Istanbul to the border.
She said she was one among about 2,000 people, including families with young children, mainly from Syria.
"They told me 'go that way'," Ngonda said, "They took my money, took my things, then they ... told me that I should pass inside the water."
But many of the new arrivals were being picked up by Greek authorities shortly after they crossed the border, and were being driven away in white vans.  
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's announcement on easing of restrictions on those wishing to cross to Europe on Thursday, marked a dramatic departure from a previous policy of containing the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants in Turkey.
Erdogan apparently aims to pressure Europe into offering Turkey more support in dealing with the fallout from the Syrian war to its south.

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