Greece has opened a new migrant camp on the island of Samos that replaces an obsolete and once overcrowded facility.
The new facility cost about 43 million euros. It will house up to 3,000 people, about a third of them in 240 small houses and the rest in large halls, Greek Migration and Asylum Minister, Notis Mitarakis, said on Saturday.
“Today Samos is finding tranquility and leaves behind the shameful scenes at Vathy,” Mitarakis said.
“The new closed, monitored facility offers much better living conditions, is outside city limits, and has much enhanced security measures to protect the beneficiaries, personnel but also local communities.”
The remaining 550 migrants in the old Vathy facility will now be transferred to the new one beginning on Monday.
Greece is bracing for a new wave of migrants after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, although Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has vowed to halt the influx long before it reaches Greece’s border. Samos lies close to the Turkish coast.
Source: AP News.
