Leros

Five Greek islands in the eastern Aegean are bearing the brunt of the migration wave, according to data made public by the port authorities.

The police in the Greek city of Thessaloniki detained a Bulgarian citizen for illegal trafficking of immigrants with a truck carrying 103 people, 19 of whom children.

According to media reports, each of the refugees had paid EUR 2000 for being transported across the border.

The latest developments with the migrant crisis on several eastern Aegean islands included continued arrivals at the port of Piraeus of Syrian refugees, people evacuated from the isles by the ferry boat “Eleftherios Venizelos”.

Europe does not fully grasp the magnitude of Syria's refugee crisis and should open its borders to shoulder a responsibility Turkey has been bearing alone, the head of the Turkish relief effort said. 

The transport of refugees and migrants from eastern Aegean islands to mainland Greece continues unabated, as an additional 2,171 Syrian nationals are expected to disembark from the passenger ferry ‘Eleftherios Venizelos’, which was scheduled to dock at the port of Piraeus on Friday afternoon.

A ferry carrying about 2,500 migrants who had arrived clandestinely on Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast docked on Aug. 20 in Greece's main port of Piraeus near Athens.

More brawls were reported at the port of Lesvos (Lesbos) on Tuesday between third country nationals that landed on the island over recent days after disembarking from the opposite Turkish coast.

Modern Greek bureaucracy and petty partisan interests appear to have again reared their “ugly head”, with the eight residents of the remote isle of Levitha essentially considered as “non entities” by the municipality Leros, part of a bid to characterize the isle as uninhabited.

With scenes of thousands of illegal immigrants and refugees flooding the Greek islands of Kos, Lesbos and Leros making the news headlines all around the globe, it is interesting to see what the conditions are for refugees in other EU countries.

“Chaos” is the word to describe the situation on the island of Kos with images of violence between undocumented migrants and the outnumbered Greek police doing the rounds on the international media.