Most returnees were from Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to Ewa Moncure, a spokeswoman for EU border agency Frontex. Each migrant was accompanied by a plainclothes Frontex officer. Greek riot police squads also boarded the boats. Migrants get on a ferry at the port of Mytilini in the Greek island of Lesbos, on Monday, during the first day of the implementation of the deal between EU and Turkey. Credit:AP The deportations are the first of thousands expected under the EU's plan to end the continent's refugee crisis by shifting the burden onto neighbouring Turkey. Human rights groups have condemned the strategy as a violation of basic rights. But European officials forged ahead with a plan to send several boatloads of people on Monday fromLesbos and Chios - two popular landing spots for refugee rafts - to Turkey. More deportations are expected to follow later in the week. Ms Moncure said Frontex had organised ferries to transport the migrants and that 200 personnel would be on Lesbos to oversee the operation, including to serve as escorts.

"It needs to be done right with respect to human dignity," she said. Under the deal, migrants arriving illegally in Greece will be returned to Turkey if they do not apply for asylum or if their asylum claim is rejected. Credit:AP But human rights advocates insisted that the plan was fundamentally flawed and represented an abandonment of European responsibility to help those seeking escape from the conflicts flaring on Europe's doorstep. Amnesty International has called it "a historic blow to human rights." Under the deal that the EU struck with Turkey last month, all refugees and migrants who arrive on Greek shores aboard smugglers' rafts afterMarch 20 will be sent back. The EU has said it will accept one Syrian refugee from a refugee camp in Turkey for every Syrian who is returned. In an attempt to discourage people from crossing on their own, those who are returned will be sent to the back of the line for the resettlement program. A ferry carrying migrants from Greece to Turkey leaves the port of Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, on Monday. Credit:AP

The EU has promised billions of dollars of financial assistance to Turkey and has pledged to ease visa rules for Turks seeking to travel in the 28-member union. The EU has also said it will revive Turkey's long-stalled membership application. The agreement reflects European desperation to halt refugee flows that brought more than 1 million asylum seekers to the continent's shores last year. The number was on pace to be even higher this year until countries up and down the migrant trail sealed their borders, effectively trapping people in Greece. Migrants take their belongings from a bus before boarding a ferry for Turkey as riot police watch on Monday. Credit:AP German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the country's Tagesspiegel newspaper Sunday that he was cautiously optimistic "the high point of the migrant crisis is behind us." New arrivals in Germany have plummeted to a rate of 140 a day, compared with thousands a day earlier in the year.

Migrants arrive on a bus at the port of Mytilene in the Greek island of Lesbos, on Monday. Credit:AP The reduced flows to Germany largely reflect a bottling up of the flows in Greece, with borders closed from Macedonia to Austria. As of Monday, 51,000 people remained stuck in camps and other accommodation across Greece, a country that's already struggling with a historic debt and economic crisis. More than 6000 of those people are on the islands and are due to be sent back. Migrants and refugees inside Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, on Sunday. Credit:AP It is unclear whether they will go quietly. On Friday, detainees on the island of Chios stormed the gates of their detention facility and staged an impromptu protest in the port. Another demonstration was held Sunday.

Some 3400 people are being held on Lesbos, which since last year has been the primary gateway to Europe for those seeking an escape from war, oppression and poverty. The vast majority of the island's migrants are being held in a detention centre set among olive groves near the village of Moria. The facility, ringed by barbed wire and patrolled by twitchy soldiers and police officers who won't let journalists near, was largely quiet Sunday evening - though the detainees let loose with shouts and cries around dinner time. Major humanitarian aid groups pulled their assistance from the facility last month, in protest against the EU's plans. A scattering of volunteers remains, however, and they said on Sunday that detainees were struggling to obtain accurate information about their rights. "The people inside are constantly asking, 'Am I going to be deported?' And no one can give them an answer," said Ayesha Keller, a spokeswoman for the volunteer group Better Days for Moria. "No one has a clue what's going on. It's chaos." Shahrukh Rind, a 23-year-old native of Pakistan who has been volunteering his help on Lesbos since arriving on the island last November, said detainees were not being told how they could apply for asylum. "These are people who risked their lives to get here," he said. "Just imagine paying 5,000 euros to flee from your country, and now you're being sent back."

EU officials said the initial round of deportations would be limited to people whose asylum claims have been rejected or who have not applied for asylum. Half of the 151,000 people who have arrived by boat in Greece this year are from Syria, with Afghans and Iraqis making up the majority of the rest. All three countries have been devastated by war. Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala was quoted on Sunday by the pro-government Aksam newspaper as saying that Syrians returned from Greece would be given the chance to register in Turkey, but that Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis would be sent back to their country of origin. International broadcasters have showns images of local Turkish citizens decrying the plan to send migrants to their towns, complaining there is no place for them and that they do not feel safe. Human rights advocates have expressed concern that Turkey will not provide adequate protection to people in need of asylum. Rights groups have also bristled at Europe's insistence on deporting all new arrivals, regardless of the legitimacy of their asylum claims.

Europe's plans are premised on the idea that Turkey is a safe country for refugees and that asylum-seekers can apply for protection there. Turkey has already taken in nearly 3 million refugees from the Syrian war. Washington Post, Reuters Follow FairfaxForeign on Twitter Follow Fairfax Foreign on Facebook