Although there were temporary solutions, during the winter of 2015 and into 2016 the process began to stall. The numbers kept coming as before, but the initial enthusiasm of the rest of Europe was already beginning to flag. At one point there were 20,000 refugees in Mytilene. Neither Moria nor Kara Tepe is designed to keep even a quarter of that number. But the people of Mytilene did not turn on the arrivals, though they were close to being outnumbered by them. With both migrant centres in overflow, tents sprang up across the centre of the city, on any available green or rubbly place, on roundabouts and sidewalks. When the winter was at its worst, locals opened their homes or cleared out their garages to house migrants trying to escape the worst of the weather.

In the summer of 2016, when deals with foreign powers and warnings from within Europe were meant to have stopped the flow of people to these islands, the boats kept coming. But an emergency deal in March between the EU and Turkey had somewhat eased the pressure and slowed the flow. In return for a payment from the EU to the Turkish government of six billion Euros as well as visa-free travel across Europe for many Turks, the number of migrants coming into Europe had lessened considerably. During August the arrivals to Lesbos were down to a couple of hundred, sometimes a couple of dozen, a day. One night that month when the sea was glassily calm, three boats managed to come across, two to the north of the island and one up to the harbour in Mytilene. A fourth was stopped by the Turkish naval forces, who are said by migrants and aid-workers alike to take a laissez-faire approach to the boats which the EU-Turkey deal should force them to turn back. In reality, when they see them coming they stop some but let others through.