(VOVworld) – The first batch of 30 refugees left Greece on Wednesday under the EU’s reallocation plan to help ease the burden on a Europe inundated by refugees.

Six Syrian and Iraqi families will begin their new life in Luxembourg (photo: newsunited)

Those six Syrian and Iraqi families will begin their new life in Luxembourg, and Belgium. Present at Athens international airport to say farewell to the refugees, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called the flight a symbolic start of program that will expand.

According to Frontex, the EU border agency, the number of illegal migrants in Europe is 800,000 and rising. Under the EU’s reallocation and resettlement plan for 160,000 refugees, the first two groups of refugees from Eritrea and Syria left Italy last month and were sent to Switzerland and Finland. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland still object to the plan.