The Eleftherios Venizelos ferry boat arrived in the port of Piraeus shortly after 9am on Thursday morning carrying about 2,450 Syrian refugees from the islands of Kos, Kalymnos, Leros and Mytilene.
Initially the ferry boat was to take the refugees to Thessaloniki from where they would be taken to Idomeni near Kilkis, on the border with FYROM. Government sources however noted that the ferry boat was diverted to Piraeus in order to confirm the identity of about 150 refugees at the immigration authorities.
A well-informed source however has told To Vima that the reason for the change in final destination was to avoid having thousands of refugees crossing over the into FYROM overnight, which may in turn cause a diplomatic incident or force Skopje to close down its border to Greece.
Most of the Syrian refugees wish to travel to northern European countries and the quickest route is via FYROM, Serbia and Hungary. That is why the open refugee camp that was established in Eleonas currently only house 250 people, when it could accommodate up to 720.
It has not yet been decided whether the ferry boat will return to Kos or any other Aegean island, in order to transfer more refugees and migrants. At present there are about 8,000 refugees on Mytilene, with about 3,250 held in the first reception centers, 4,000 in the streets unable to travel over the mainland Greece due to a ticket shortage and about 1,250 new arrivals who are being registered.
