NEWS

Navy ship with 389 migrants and refugees reaches Piraeus

Navy ship with 389 migrants and refugees reaches Piraeus

A navy ship carrying 389 refugees and migrants from the southeast Aegean island of Symi docked at the Greek capital’s Piraeus port on Wednesday morning.

The asylum-seekers, most of them identified as Afghan nationals, were being taken on buses to unspecified facilities on the Greek mainland.

The operation to transfer the migrants to the mainland came in response to an appeal from Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas, who said that his island is unequipped to deal with a surge in arrivals from Turkey.

Symi does not have facilities to house migrants and asylum-seekers, which means that dozens of people were having to sleep in tents or in the open air outside the island’s police station and port authority, as well as in public squares and streets.

A group of more than 500 asylum-seekers were transferred from Symi to Piraeus on Monday.

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