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News > World

Greece Moves over 2,500 Migrants from Islands to the Mainland

  • A passenger ship carrying Syrian migrants sets sail from the Greek island of Kos on Wednesday.

    A passenger ship carrying Syrian migrants sets sail from the Greek island of Kos on Wednesday. | Photo: AFP

Published 20 August 2015
Opinion

Over 20,800 people fleeing violence in Syria and Afghanistan have arrived on Greece's islands in the last week alone.

A Greek passenger ship left the island of Kos Wednesday on a mission to transport some 1,700 migrants to the country's mainland, as the island struggles to deal with the influx of refugees arriving on its shores.

The ship will also stop at the neighboring islands of Kalymnos and Leros to pick up another 1,000, and is said to be headed to the northern port city of Thessaloniki.

RELATED: Migrants in the Mediterranean: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The government recently chartered the large passenger ship – named Eleftherios Venizelos, after a former Greek leader of the national liberation movement – which has been acting as a floating registration center and accommodation device on the island of Kos since Sunday.

After it left the dock Wednesday, officials told the media that it will arrive in Athens Thursday, but will continue on to its final destination, Thessaloniki.

Greece has been stumped with how to deal with the thousands of migrants arriving on its islands from Turkey – most of whom are from war torn Syria or Afghanistan, seeking safety and a better life in Europe. In the last week alone, over 20,800 migrants have arrived in Greece, according to recent figures by the United Nations.

Recently, Greece was forced to ask the European Union for help with the tens of thousands of people seeking aid and shelter.

“Itis certain that if there is no intervention from the United Nations, the European Union ... Greece will have a slow-burning bomb at its foundations, and everyone should understand that,” said civil protection minister Yiannis Panousis.

The migrants have mostly been living in squalid conditions on Greece's islands, since the government and other aid organizations have had little funding to work with. Their arrival has added more pressure to the country, which is currently undergoing its own economic crisis as it continues to negotiate debt repayments with its European creditors.

The government has also been highly criticized for not dealing with the issue properly, which would include better planning and coordination over immigration policy.

RELATED: The Making of the Migration Crisis

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