One Night on Migrant Patrol With the Greek Coast Guard

  • Migrants rest in makeshift camps on the roadside as they make their way on foot across the Greek island of Lesbos, the first piece of European land they reached after crossing in rickety boats from neighboring Turkey.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Migrants rest in makeshift camps on the roadside as they make their way on foot across the Greek island of Lesbos, the first piece of European land they reached after crossing in rickety boats from neighboring Turkey.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • A migrant carries her child up from the beach to a road on the Greek island of Lesbos, the first piece of European land they reached after crossing from Turkey with a few dozen other migrants in an overcrowded motorboat.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Volunteers rush to welcome a boat full of migrants as it arrives on the Greek island of Lesbos.
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  • Migrants from Afghanistan rejoice after crossing safely by boat from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos, the first piece of European land they reached on their journey to claim asylum in Germany and other wealthy European nations.
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  • A German volunteer helps a family from Afghanistan that has just come ashore from Turkey on the Greek island of Lesbos, the first piece of European land they reached on their journey to claim asylum in Germany and other wealthy European nations.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Volunteers rush to welcome a boat full of migrants as it arrives on the Greek island of Lesbos.
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  • Migrants grasp at a bowl of rice during food distribution at a newly built camp for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos.
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  • Migrants pray at the makeshift mosque they have built inside a detention and processing camp for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos.
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  • An Afghan migrant shaves with the help of a traffic mirror on the side of a highway on the Greek island of Levos.
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  • A Syrian migrant rests at a hastily built camp for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos. Sept. 4, 2015.
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  • Migrants wait at a camp for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos to receive registration documents from Greek authorities that will allow them to leave the island on ferries and travel onward toward Western Europe.
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  • Tents full of migrants stand outside a detention and processing center for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos, one of the most crowded and volatile outposts for the unprecedented wave of migrants coming to the European Union from conflict zones across the Muslim world.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Migrants wait for bowl of food during mealtime at a newly built camp for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesbos.
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  • Migrants come aboard a cruise ship that the Greek government chartered to transport them to Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos. The regular ferry service traveling this route was unable to cope with the unprecedented influx of migrants going through Greece to Western Europe from various conflict zones across the Muslim world.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Crewmembers of a Greek cruise ship help a Syrian woman who has collapsed while boarding the ship, along with nearly 2500 other asylum seekers, to be taken Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos. After regaining consciousness inside an ambulance parked at the pier, the woman asked to go back on the ship rather than be taken to hospital. The crew obliged.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Migrants rest and recharge their phones aboard a cruise ship that the Greek government chartered to transport them to Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos. The regular ferry service traveling this route was unable to cope with the unprecedented influx of migrants going through Greece to Western Europe from various conflict zones across the Muslim world.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Migrants rest and recharge their phones aboard a cruise ship that the Greek government chartered to transport them to Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos. The regular ferry service traveling this route was unable to cope with the unprecedented influx of migrants going through Greece to Western Europe from various conflict zones across the Muslim world.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Migrants rest and recharge their phones aboard a cruise ship that the Greek government chartered to transport them to Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos. The regular ferry service traveling this route was unable to cope with the unprecedented influx of migrants going through Greece to Western Europe from various conflict zones across the Muslim world.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • A migrant takes a selfie aboard a cruise ship that the Greek government chartered to transport them to Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos.
    Yuri Kozyrev—NOOR for TIME
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  • Migrants use the netting over a swimming pool to dry their laundry aboard a cruise ship that the Greek government chartered to transport them to Athens from the Greek island of Lesbos.
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By Simon Shuster

It was close to midnight aboard the Commander Kazakos, a Greek coast-guard vessel, when the first migrant boat of the nightly patrol appeared on the screen of the captain’s radar – a tiny green blip representing a motorboat packed with 47 desperate souls. Running across the deck, Petty Officer Kyriakos Papas shouted, “We have a target!” And the ship steered a course toward the migrants.

Over the past year, the 10-man crew has patrolled the front lines of one of the largest mass migrations into Europe since World War II. Each night, the Commander Kazakos sets out on another of these missions from one of two ports on the island of Leros, an arid sliver of land that hosts a few resorts for tourists on a budget, and on Sept. 6, the ship’s crew allowed a TIME reporter and photographer to come along on a patrol.

Read Simon Shuster’s full report here.

Yuri Kozyrev is a TIME contract photographer represented by Noor.

Kira Pollack, who edited this photo essay, is TIME’s Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise.

Simon Shuster is a reporter for TIME magazine.

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