Refugees relocated, others go to mainland

A group of 234 refugees boarded a charter flight from Athens to Lyon, France on Wednesday as part of the European Union's relocation program, while dozens more migrants, deemed to belong to vulnerable groups, were transferred by ferry from the islands of the Aegean to mainland Greece.

The group relocated to Lyon comprised 132 adults and 102 minors, 190 of them Syrian nationals and the remainder from Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

In comments made at Athens International Airport, which he visited to see off the refugees, Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas said that a total of 22,000 asylum seekers have been relocated from Greece to other European nations over the past year and a half, and that another 5,000 resettlements are pending.

The majority of those migrants have gone to France and Germany while Poland - though obliged to take in 100 people as part of...