Eleftherios Papakalodoukas

A navy ship carrying 389 refugees and migrants from the southeast Aegean island of Symi docked at the Greek capital's Piraeus port on Wednesday morning.
The asylum-seekers, most of them identified as Afghan nationals, were being taken on buses to unspecified facilities on the Greek mainland.

A navy ship carrying around 500 refugees and migrants from the southeast Aegean island of Symi docked at the Greek capital's Piraeus port on Tuesday morning.

The operation to transfer the migrants to the mainland came in response to an appeal from Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas, who said that his island is unequipped to deal with a surge in arrivals from Turkey.

Around 300 migrants and refugees who arrived from Turkey over the past few days are to be transferred off the southeastern Aegean island of Symi by the end of the week.

The decision comes in response to a number of complaints made by Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas, who has stressed that his island is completely unequipped to host, feed and care for asylum-seekers.