Greece begins moving migrants to new ‘closed’ camp

SAMOS, Greece: Greece on Monday began moving asylum seekers to the first of several new EU-funded ‘closed’ camps on its islands, hours after a fire torched a part of the the current facility.

Rights groups oppose the new camps, saying that the strict access measures in them are too restrictive.

“Today is a historic day ... a day of joy for us,” Manos Logothetis, general secretary for asylum at the Greek migration ministry, told state TV ERT at the island of Samos.

Logothetis told AFP that out of some 400 people at the current Vathy camp at Samos, 270 have said that they want to move to the new Zervou facility.

The first bus with 22 people on board was already heading to Zervou, Logothetis said.

The ministry is prepared to register up to 200 people today and the remainder on Tuesday, he said.

Late on Sunday a major fire broke out in an abandoned part of the Vathy camp, with the ministry saying no-one was hurt.

Logothetis on Monday told ERT it was “habitual” for asylum seekers to sort through their belongings ahead of a camp move, and torch anything they did not intend to bring with them.

“It was not a surprise, we were prepared for this,” he said.

According to the ministry, all the asylum-seekers had been evacuated to an empty space near the entrance of the camp as firefighters tackled the blaze.

The new Samos facility is the first of several such camps on five Greek islands created with EU funds.

— AFP photo Makeshift tents burn at the ‘jungle’ part of the RIC (Reception and Identification center) for migrants and refugees in the town of Vathy, on the island of Samos.