ATHENS: Greece this week will “step up” evacuation efforts at the squalid Idomeni border camp, officials said Monday as police were reportedly gearing up for a major operation.
“The transfer of refugees trapped at Idomeni to hospitality areas probably begins tomorrow (Tuesday),” Yiorgos Kyritsis, the government’s migration spokesman, told state agency ANA.
Former industrial facilities near Thessaloniki will be utilized for the purpose and the operation should be over in ten days, Kyritsis added.
A government source earlier told AFP: “We will carry out a broader transfer operation as we have 6,000 available places in reception centers,” adding that the operation would be gradual and that authorities hoped to avoid the use of force.
“There will be a police presence and we will be persuasive, but we do not foresee pervasive use of force to make all these people leave in one go,” the official said, indicating that there are currently 8,400 people at the camp.
Another government source said loudspeakers were already warning camp residents to prepare to leave.
ed this.
Local authorities and farmers have been for weeks pressing the leftist government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to evacuate the camp, pointing to an alleged rise in petty crime.
The governor of central Macedonia region Apostolos Tzitzikostas last week filed a complaint over the issue with judicial authorities, accusing the government of allowing the area to descend into lawlessness.
The government was also criticized as the camp’s sprawling size had effectively put of action Greece’s main commercial rail link through Macedonia, forcing companies to reroute their goods via neighboring Bulgaria at higher cost.
“The transfer of refugees trapped at Idomeni to hospitality areas probably begins tomorrow (Tuesday),” Yiorgos Kyritsis, the government’s migration spokesman, told state agency ANA.
Former industrial facilities near Thessaloniki will be utilized for the purpose and the operation should be over in ten days, Kyritsis added.
A government source earlier told AFP: “We will carry out a broader transfer operation as we have 6,000 available places in reception centers,” adding that the operation would be gradual and that authorities hoped to avoid the use of force.
“There will be a police presence and we will be persuasive, but we do not foresee pervasive use of force to make all these people leave in one go,” the official said, indicating that there are currently 8,400 people at the camp.
Another government source said loudspeakers were already warning camp residents to prepare to leave.
ed this.
Local authorities and farmers have been for weeks pressing the leftist government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to evacuate the camp, pointing to an alleged rise in petty crime.
The governor of central Macedonia region Apostolos Tzitzikostas last week filed a complaint over the issue with judicial authorities, accusing the government of allowing the area to descend into lawlessness.
The government was also criticized as the camp’s sprawling size had effectively put of action Greece’s main commercial rail link through Macedonia, forcing companies to reroute their goods via neighboring Bulgaria at higher cost.
