Greek authorities began on Tuesday morning to gradually evacuate people from the country’s largest informal refugee camp which has sprung up near the village of Idomeni located at the border with Macedonia.
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In a statement to ANA-MPA news agency, Giorgos Kyritsis – a spokesman for the Greek refugee coordinating committee – estimated that all would be transferred over the next 10 days starting from Tuesday.
The camp, which sprang up at an informal pedestrian border crossing for refugees and migrants heading north to Europe, is home to an estimated 8,400 people.
Officials have said 6,000 spots are available at reception centres, with most of the migrants to be moved to camps at former industrial facilities near Thessaloniki.
Some 20 riot police units comprising roughly 400 police officers are being use in the operation, government officials reported.
Greece was the main entry point for more than a million migrants who made it to Europe a year ago, mostly after perilous sea crossings. Stranded migrants were piling up for months, reaching more than 13,000 people at its peak, including hundreds of children, mostly coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today, they face deportation back to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece.
At one point more than 12,000 lived there after several Balkan countries shut their borders in February, barring migrants and refugees from central and northern Europe.
The European Commission on Monday hailed the Greek move to empty the camp at Idomeni.
But numerous estimated 54,000 refugees and migrants now stranded in Greecee, a country already burdened by financial troubles, remain hopeful of eventually reaching wealthier countries like Germany and Austria.
Police have prevented journalists from entering the camp, which was expected to be cleared by the end of the week, but Kyritsis said that this was “probably a temporary measure”.
The government has been trying to persuade people in Idomeni to leave the area and head to organised camps.
Few of those inside, however, appeared keen to move to new accommodation. “That’s what everybody who’s been there said”, Hind Al Mkawi, a 38-year-old refugee from Damascus, told the AP.
“Why, two months after the EU-Turkey deal, has so little progress been made on the asylum and relocation process?” she added.
“This should have happened a long time ago”, said Anastasios Sachpelidis, a local transporters association representative. “We don’t have money or work, what will we do?”
Mohammed Jarusha, 23, a migrant from Homs, Syria: said: “I will go to other camps because it’s the only solution”.
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Worldwide charity Save the Children said it was concerned about a lack of basic services such as bathrooms and shelters in the official camps. “I don’t mind, but my aim is not reach the camps but to go Germany”.
