Greece's Ministry of Migration and Asylum sought to reassure islanders in the North Aegean on Sunday that the transfer of migrants from Crete to reception facilities on their islands is temporary and will not add to the burden they have carried for years.
The ministry's statement came after the Region of North Aegean pushed back sharply against the move. Regional Governor Konstantinos Moutzouris called an emergency meeting in Mytilene, and the Regional Authority said it opposed transferring migrants from other parts of the country to the islands.
According to the ministry's briefing, transfers from Crete to the North Aegean islands are carried out "in an absolutely proportional degree" and only so that identification, screening and immediate checks can be completed as part of the border procedure.
The ministry said a larger number of migrants from Crete are first moved to closed or open facilities on the mainland, depending on their profile. If an asylum request is rejected, it said, those affected are transferred directly to closed facilities so that return and deportation procedures can follow.
Departures said to outnumber arrivals
The ministry rejected the view that the new procedure would add pressure to islands that endured heavy migration flows for years. It said transfers out of the island facilities to other parts of the country far exceed the temporary movements made to the islands for identification purposes.
It cited figures for 2026: more than 2,400 transfers have been carried out from Samos to other facilities, while more than 2,300 migrants have left Lesvos. The ministry added that occupancy levels at facilities on the two islands are currently at historic lows.
The ministry said its assurance that the islands, which faced years of migration pressure, would not be burdened again remained fully intact. It repeated that any transfers to the islands are temporary and far fewer than the transfers continuously carried out to relieve pressure on them.
New reception facilities on Crete
Addressing why migrants are being moved out of Crete at all, the ministry pointed to infrastructure now being built on the island itself to manage migration flows. A temporary residence facility is already operating in Chania, and a second facility has been sited in Heraklion and is in the final stage of the required construction work.
The ministry's position is that movements between facilities are part of the overall management of arrivals and do not represent a change in policy on relieving pressure on the islands of the Eastern and North Aegean.
Regional governor's response
The issue prompted an immediate reaction from the Region of North Aegean. Moutzouris returned to Mytilene and convened an emergency meeting of the Regional Authority to address the transfer of migrants from other parts of the country to the islands.
The region has said it opposes any renewed burden on the North Aegean islands, which were for years at the center of the migration crisis.
For its part, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum maintained that there is no change in planning and that the transfers are exclusively temporary and functional in nature, with total departures from the island facilities significantly exceeding new arrivals.
