The European Union on Monday began sending back across the sea hundreds of people who, only days ago, had braved the crossing to Greece aboard flimsy rubber rafts in search of a new life.
Just after dawn on Lesbos, several bus-loads of men were led aboard two ferries under heavy police and military guard. The ferries, flying Turkish flags, steamed out of the port and turned east toward the rising sun along the Turkish coast.
The deportations are the first of thousands expected under the E.U.’s plan to end the continent’s refugee crisis by shifting the burden onto neighboring Turkey. Human rights groups have condemned the strategy as a violation of basic rights.
But European officials forged ahead with the plan to send several boatloads of people on Monday across the Aegean Sea from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios — two popular landing spots for refugee rafts — to Turkey. More deportations are expected to follow later in the week, with Europe hoping that images of people being sent back will create enough of a deterrent to halt the flow of new arrivals.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member