Samos mayor calls for migrant transfers
The mayor of Samos, Michalis Angelopoulos, has written to Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas calling for the immediate transfer of migrants from the island’s identification and processing center, or hotspot, to the mainland due to overcrowding.
The facility on the island is currently hosting 5,000 migrants and refugees – much more than the 648 it was designed to hold.
In a statement, the local authority expressed “surprise and intense concern” at recent comments by Vitsas that traffickers have “targeted” Samos, noting that his job is to avert such phenomena, not report them.
Meanwhile, as the influx of migrants continues over the Greek-Turkish land border too, a woman was killed and nine people were injured in northern Greece on Tuesday when the minivan they were traveling in overturned and crashed on the Egnatia Odos highway.
Authorities believe that the passengers were undocumented migrants.
The past few months have seen a spike in such incidents, usually provoked by smugglers attempting to elude the police.
