MOLIVOS, Greece (AP) – The 26-year-old Syrian economics graduate knew exactly what to do and where to go.
Amr Zaidah, with the aid of GPS, helped pilot the inflatable boat that brought him and about 30 more migrants to the closest spot to the village of Molivos on Lesbos, one of several Greek islands that have this summer served the tens of thousands of migrants as a first stop on the journey to western Europe.
Molivos, he knew, was where buses were taking migrants to the capital of Lesbos, Mytilene, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the south. The alternative would be a punishing trek on narrow dirt tracks hugging the coast and lined by olive trees, a stretch of highway and a narrow road that cuts through rolling hills.
At Mytilene, Zaidah also knew, he and the eight friends he came with could seek the official document that allows them to continue their journey.
“I have researched our journey for more than two months,” said Zaidah, a native of the Syrian city of Aleppo who has worked the past two years as an accountant in Istanbul. “I used social media networks to look into where to go, who is the best smuggler to hire and what stuff we needed for the trip,” he said as he had chocolate cake and coffee at a posh seafront cafe, his sneakers still wet from the landing.