The port of arrival

On the morning of August 20, 2015, the ship Eleftherios Venizelos docked at the port of Piraeus carrying 2,440 refugees from Syria. On this first trip, 1,308 refugees boarded the ship at Kos, 124 at Kalymnos, 300 at Leros and 708 at Mytilene.

This first arrival was followed by many others, with ships carrying refugees from the islands to the mainland for months. Only in September 2015, more than 150,000 refugees disembarked at the port of Piraeus. The Greek government leased ships to carry the refugees from the North Aegean islands to Piraeus and Kavala, but many refugees also boarded regular ships. According to the newspapers, traffic for these routes doubled or even tripled during the third and fourth quarter of 2015.[1] Indicatively, the Lesbos newspaper Empros [Forward] writes that for the first time in the history of the island, there were passenger ships waiting outside the port due to port congestion.[2]

During those first few months, a sizeable solidarity and support movement developed at the port of Piraeus and the rest of the country. In September 2015, the first volunteer groups were already providing the refugees with basic necessities (water, food, hygiene items, clothes), so that they could continue their journey. This climate of shared humanity was reflected in the feature article of the newspaper Kathimerini [The Daily Newspaper] chronicling the refugees’ journey on the ship Eleftherios Venizelos.[3]

It was the time when more than a million refugees managed to cross the border between Turkey and Greece and reach the Aegean islands. This period was characterised as a ‘refugee crisis’, a revealing choice of terms that indicates how refugee movements are designated ‘crises’ only when they reach European ground, since the mass exodus from Syria had been unfolding since as early as 2011. In migration studies, that same period was instead called ‘the summer of migration’, because it was a period when the mass numbers and the sheer determination of the refugees managed to actively challenge the walls of Fortress Europe.

[1] https://m.naftemporiki.gr/story/1075311/epipleon-esoda-30-ekat-euro-stin-aktoploia-logo-prosfugikou

[2] https://www.emprosnet.gr/oikonomia/85844-oi-prosfyges-diesosan-tin-aktoploia

[3] https://www.kathimerini.gr/investigations/830367/oi-taxidiotes-tis-apognosis-sto-aigaio/#webdoc