What the previous coalition government couldn’t do in seven months to alleviate some of the biggest problems related to the migration crisis enveloping a handful of Greek isles was announced on Wednesday by the caretaker government.

Specifically, the Thanou caretaker administration announced the establishment of a refugees coordination center as well as specific actions to improve conditions in current reception centers.

The caretaker government also promised to distinctly speed up the identification process in order to identify people that qualify as war refugees and asylum seekers from third country nationals — i.e. from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Algeria, sub-Saharan Africa — that simply want to emigrate to western and northern Europe as irregular/undocumented/illegal migrants.

Additionally, the Thanou government by will commence the procedure to request emergency funds from the EU in order to funnel relief to several eastern Aegean islands that have received waves of refugees and migrants, such as Lesvos (Lesbos).

The island has borne the brunt of the migration avalanche, with 26,000 third country nationals that arrived from the opposite Turkish coast estimated on Wednesday on the island, and most living in squalid conditions.

The formal request for assistance by the Commission was something that the previous radical leftist government under Alexis Tsipras failed to forward, according to Commission officials.

Meanwhile, in a telling incident in northern Greece, 103 people, all identified as Syrians, were found stuffed in a truck travelling on the Egnatia Motorway.

The incident was chilling given that it occurred days after the bodies of scores of migrants were located in an abandoned refrigeration truck off an Austrian highway.

The Syrians told Greek authorities that they each paid 2,000 euros to be smuggled towards western Europe by Turkish and Bulgarian migrant smugglers.

The group had illegally entered Greek territory by crossing the Evros River further east, which separates Greece from the European part of Turkey in Thrace province.

Who’s to blame for this? 

Finally, one gut-wrenching image taken from a Turkish beach and disseminated on Wednesday demonstrated both the utterly complex nature of the crisis, on the one hand, but also the absolute need for Europe to protect at-risk populations trying to enter the continent.