A total of 50,411 refugees and newly arrived migrants are currently in Greece, according to official figures released on Monday by the Greek government.
Of those, nearly 14,000 remain in the greater Athens area, with some 5,000 still camped out at the port of Piraeus – the first mainland destination – after being transported by ferry boats from a handful of Greek islands. Another 4,200 are being hosted at various facilities at the old Athens airport in the Greek capital’s southern coastline.
Some 25,000 third country nationals that recently landed in Greece after being ferried over from Turkey are located in northern Greece, of which 13,250 are stranded on the border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM).
The latter country, which is not an EU member-state, this month closed its border to the mass entry of people registered as Mideast war refugees, but also to citizens of various third world countries – from Morocco to Bangladesh – who have exploited the refugee crisis to emigrate to preferred west and northern European destinations.
Another 5,538 refugees and migrants, as per the government’s figures, still remain on various islands, with most on Lesvos (Lesbos) – the island that has emerged as a “favorite destination” of people smugglers operating from the opposite Turkish coast.
