Eleven migrants who were turned down for asylum were returned to Turkey from Mytilini on Lesvos on Friday, Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarachi announced on social media.

Soldiers have been working alongside the border guard to "halt" migrant-refugee flows and traffickers in Evros since Thursday as part of a government plan to "seal" the Greek-Turkish border in Thrace. In the same context, with an amendment tabled to a draftbill  by the ministry of national defense and voted on Friday, a single border surveillance body (ENFES), which reports directly to the national coordinator, is in place. Its mission will be to exercise of co-ordinated control and surveillance of the land and sea borders of the Greek territory.

Deputy Citizen Protection Minister George Koumoutsakos participated on Thursday in a seminar on "Eastern Mediterranean. The Importance of Pillars of Stability in a Sea of Instability" organised by the Hellenic American Institute in Athens. The event was attended by U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt, International Relations Professor Konstantinos Filis, and Doug Bandow, a member of the U.S. CATO Institute.