Sailing in the June sunshine off the island of Lesbos, Greek fisherman Thanos Marmarinos remembers how he saved migrant women and children whose dinghy was breaking up in a gale one night ten years ago.

Lesbos

Lesbos, a Greek island near Turkey, was once a major entry point for migrants fleeing conflict in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Residents and aid workers previously played a significant role in assisting new arrivals, but government policies have since become more restrictive. Under a 2021 law, helping migrants can result in criminal charges, reflecting a broader shift in European migration policy. 

Despite these changes, migrants continue to arrive, and deaths at sea remain a concern. The Greek Coast Guard maintains it acts professionally and prioritizes human life, while Greece denies allegations of human rights violations or forced returns. A new EU-funded migrant camp is set to open on Lesbos, facing local opposition due to environmental concerns. Some residents, like fisherman Thanos Marmarinos, continue to help migrants despite legal risks, emphasizing the importance of humanitarian action.

Greek island on Europe's frontier keeps migrants at bay

Thanos Marmarinos pilots his small fishing boat out of the harbor on the northern shore of the Greek island of Lesbos. Ten years ago, Marmarinos was a front-line rescuer for some of the hundreds of thousands of migrants attempting to sail to Europe. He remembers pulling women and children from a dinghy that was breaking up in a storm. One child was wrapped so tight he could only see their eyes. These images never leave your mind, he says. In 2015, Lesbos became the first stop for half of the one million people trying to reach Europe from countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The island is a short distance from the Turkish shore and, for hundreds of thousands, represented a toehold on EU territory. Lesbos residents helped them find food and shelter, and the island became a hub for charities and aid workers and a symbol of Europe's solidarity toward people fleeing war and poverty. I was constantly carrying. We were tying up boats that were adrift. In the middle of the sea, we tied them up and brought them to shore. But today, the island shows how far government responses have hardened against people seeking refuge in Europe. Now, if Marmarinos offered to help migrants in distress, he risks jail. Anyone caught helping migrants to shore now may face charges including facilitating illegal entry into Greece or helping a criminal enterprise. That's under a 2021 law passed as part of Europe's efforts to counter mass migration from the Middle East and Asia. Put your life jacket on! Put your life jacket on! A shift in attitudes here began in 2016 following a deal between the EU and Ankara whereby Syrian refugees arriving in Greece would be returned to Turkey. That meant Greece would no longer be a transit country on the route to Northern Europe, but a holding zone where tens of thousands of migrants had to wait for their fate to be decided. A camp in an old military base outside the village of Moria housed more than 10,000 people by 2018, up from just a few hundred in under three years. A fire ripped through it in 2020. Messages, some of them partially defaced, are still visible. This one read, Welcome to Europe. People continue fleeing, and they will continue fleeing. It's not an issue of whether we like it or not. Talina Demeli is an assistant protection officer with the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR. She said the change in policy will not change the reality. It's a fact and we need to face it, and the European governments need to face it. You cannot deter people trying to save their lives from fleeing. Bek Morad Sadeji fled Afghanistan. He is in physical therapy, trying to regain his strength after surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Lesbos in April. Eight people, including his wife and a two-year-old, drowned. He told Reuters his boat was intercepted by a Greek Coast Guard vessel, which directed them back to Turkey, and then swamped their small boat with seawater. When we were coming, a ship came directly in front of us. It said, stop, stop, stop, Turkey, Turkey, Turkey. It came in front of our boat, accelerated, and rose up over our boat, our boat filled with water. In a statement, the Coast Guard said it launched a rescue operation immediately when it saw the dinghy was taking on water. In response to Reuters' requests for comment, it said the Coast Guard always acts, quote, with professionalism and absolute respect for human life. Since 2015, Greece's Coast Guard service has saved 263,000 third-country nationals in danger at sea, it said. Migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, while far below 2015 levels, are still common. In the eastern Mediterranean route alone, which includes Greece, a UN agency reported 191 migrants died or went missing trying to reach Europe in 2024. The UN recorded 2,573 migrant deaths and disappearances on all Mediterranean routes last year. Greece denies that it violates human rights or that it forcefully returns asylum seekers from its shores. Greece's migration ministry and the prime minister's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story. With EU funding, Lesbos will soon open a new migrant camp able to house 5,000 people. The site, comprising rows of identical grey shipping containers, is miles from the nearest convenience store. Locals oppose it, saying it will increase the threat of wildfires in a region that often does not see rain for months. But people do still come. Fisherman Marmarinos says the threat of jail won't deter him from helping those in need. Even now, if I go out and see a boat in danger, I'll go help. How could I just leave and wait for the coast guard? By the time the coast guard arrives, people might already have drowned. Out at sea that June morning, he spotted another small dinghy approaching. It held 19 migrants from Yemen and Sudan, according to legal center Lesbos, a local aid agency that provides legal assistance to migrants. The boat landed in a rocky cove. The migrants disembarked and ran up a steep hillside. You have to be human, end of story. That's what I've come to understand. If you're not human, then nothing else matters. Nothing.

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