Migration minister tours camps on Lesvos
Greek Migration Minister Dimitris Keridis was on his first visit to the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos since being appointed on Tuesday, touring migrant and refugee camps and meeting with local officials.
According to state broadcaster ERT, Keridis began his tour at the closed-access camp in Mavrovouni, which is home to 2,800 people, of whom 400 have been given papers to make their way to the Greek mainland. There are also 1,600 asylum seekers whose applications are still being processed, among whom roughly a third are children.
The majority of the camp’s residents, ERT said, are from Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Keridis then visited a facility for minors that is home to 117 refugees aged up to 18 years old, some of whom are attending school on the island and/or working as interpreters.
The minister is later due to meet the mayor of the main city, Mytilini, for a briefing on the situation with migration on the island, which is one of the first points of entry for asylum seekers coming into Europe via Turkey.
On Wednesday, meanwhile, he will visit the construction site of a controversial new camp in Vastria, some 40 kilometers from Mytilini, which is designed to hold as many as 5,000 people.
