A group of Bangladeshi and Pakistani migrants are likely to become the first group of migrants to be turned away from Europe and transferred to Turkey, as part of a Greek effort to get its neighbours to help bear the burden of Europe's migrant crisis.
Late on Monday, a first group of 150 migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh were transferred - handcuffed and under police escort - from the island's registration centre to a passenger ferry that would take them to the mainland by early morning.
Turkish officials arrived on the island of Lesbos on Monday to help put the deal into practice. Anyone who arrived after March 20 must be held until their papers are processed and those deemed ineligible are to be sent back to Turkey from April 4, Reuters reports.
Under the EU-Turkey roadmap agreed last Friday, a plan must be made by March 25 and some 4,000 personnel – more than half from other European Union member states – deployed to the islands by next week.
"We must move very swiftly and in a coordinated manner over the next few days to get the best possible result," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said after meeting EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos in Athens.
"Assistance in human resources must come quickly."
Avramopoulos said France, Germany and the Netherlands had already pledged logistics and personnel.
"We are at a crucial turning point ... The management of the refugee crisis for Europe as a whole hinges on the progress and success of this agreement," he said.
Greece asked its European partners on Monday for help implementing a deal with Turkey meant to stem an influx of migrants into Europe, as hundreds more – many unaware of the new rules – streamed from their boats onto Greek islands.
For months the epicentre of Europe's biggest migrant crisis since World War Two, Greece is struggling to effect the logistics operation needed to process asylum applications from hundreds of migrants still arriving daily along its shoreline.
However, on Monday, the day after the formal start of an agreement intended to close off the main route through which a million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe last year, authorities said 1,662 people had arrived on Greek islands by 7am, twice the official count of the day before.
Fate of thousands unclear
Before Friday's deal, migrants and refugees had been free to wander out of the camp and head to ferries to the Greek mainland, from where they would mostly head north through the Balkans towards wealthier western Europe, especially Germany.
Now, new arrivals are supposed to be held in centres pending the outcome of their asylum applications.
Under the deal, for every Syrian returned to Turkey, another would be resettled from Turkey within the European Union, a process which has already triggered alarm from human rights groups for being discriminatory, a violation of international law, and one which could be challenged in court.
Some diplomats believe the accord could unravel within months because neither side looks able to deliver on its commitments, but that the need to get the migration crisis under control is so urgent that it was felt best to clinch a deal now and deal with shortcomings later.
The fate of the nearly 47,000 migrants, stranded in Greece when countries along the Balkan route shut their borders a few weeks ago, remains unclear.
Hundreds of migrants travelling from the islands to the Greek mainland disembarked on Monday at the port of Pireaus near Athens. They appeared free to leave because they had landed in Greece before Sunday, witnesses said.
Some migrants said they would try to reach Idomeni, a northern Greek frontier outpost where some 12,000 refugees and migrants remain stranded, hoping that Macedonia will reopen the border and let them pass through.