Asylum Rights Denied, Migrants, Refugees Find Greek Island on the Brink

"There isn't enough food for us or the babies," Jonathan, a Congolese man, said prior to the ship's departure, worried about the health of his wife and child. "We wait and wait. They keep telling us we will leave soon."

He shook his head. "We are migrants, but we have rights."

Through the fence

Photo: Madeleine Speed

The conservative Greek government's decision to suspend asylum rights followed an order at the end of February from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in neighbouring Turkey for coast guards and border police to stand down and wave refugees and migrants through, ripping up a 2016 deal with the European Union to keep them inside Turkey's borders.

Refugees and migrants headed in droves to the Greek-Turkish border, only to find the Greek side closed. Thousands are now stuck in no man's land. Many have been pushed back with tear gas, and, reportedly, bullets.

Talks between the EU, Greece and Turkey have yet to break the deadlock.

Under the EU-Turkey deal signed in 2016, Ankara was promised six billion euros in aid to accommodate the refugees it prevented from reaching European soil.

But Erdogan, under pressure at home over heavy Turkish military losses in Syria, has repeatedly accused Europe of failing to fulfill its financial aid commitments, and threatened to open the border to some 3.6 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey and more migrants from elsewhere.

At the east end of the port of Lesbos, beside a locked gate, visitors came to offer support to those held inside. Among the visitors were migrants and refugees from the Moria camp on Lesbos, Europe's largest and most notorious migrant camp where some 20,000 are housed in facilities built for 3,000.

They passed food and...