Greece reveals plans to detain asylum seekers

GREECE yesterday announced a plan to overhaul its crowded migrant camps on islands facing Turkey and make borders “air-tight” against a feared new surge of asylum seekers.

“Decongesting the islands is a priority at this stage,” Alkiviadis Stefanis, the government’s special coordinator for migration and a former army chief of staff, told a news conference.

“These actions are designed to show our determination in dealing with the migrant-refugee crisis,” said Mr Stefanis, also deputy defence minister. The government will hire 400 additional guards for the land border with Turkey and 800 for the islands, he said, adding that the measures were aimed at “rendering migrant entry points airtight”.

Three camps are to be closed, on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, which currently house more than 27,000 people in terrible conditions and which have been repeatedly castigated by rights groups. They have a nominal capacity of just 4,500.

The Greek government said it would replace the camps with three detention facilities for identification, relocation and deportation with a capacity of at least 5,000 people each, which could be stretched to 7,000.

Asylum seekers will now be locked up until they are granted refugee status and relocated to the mainland, or rejected and sent back to Turkey.

The European Commission, a spokeswoman told AFP, “welcomes concrete steps...” as long as they are “in line with the applicable human rights standards”.