Danish Refugee Council Urges Greece To Move Migrants From Islands To Mainland

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st March, 2020) Greece should immediately relocate migrants from overcrowded Mediterranean island camps to the mainland amid violent protests and escalation in Syria, the Greece director of the Danish Refugee Agency (DRC) told Sputnik.

Hundreds of people angered by plans to build new migrant detention camps stormed construction sites on Lesbos and Chios this week, injuring police officers who guarded them.

"According to Greek reports and following recent news around the Syrian crisis, Greece is intensifying the guarding of its land and sea borders while local communities' patience has run out. It is time for immediate transfers of people to the mainland and urgent relief measures," Kyriakos Giaglis said.

Human rights agencies have long complained about dangerous conditions in island camps where thousands of migrants have been locked up in cramped quarters since the European Union signed a deal with Turkey in 2016 to stop people fleeing war and poverty from coming to Europe.

"DRC will continue to advocate for humane conditions, quality asylum procedures and against the continuous overcrowding which is the result of EU policies," Giaglis said.

He stressed that long-term solutions were needed to break the "vicious cycle" of overcrowding. In the Moria camp on Lesbos lone, over 19,000 people are being held and more are expected to come as fighting on the Turkish border with Syria intensifies.