Samos mayor calls on islanders to join rally demanding ‘decongestion’

Samos Mayor Giorgos Stantzos has appealed to islanders to join a rally planned for 4 p.m. on Monday, calling on the central government to intervene and ease overcrowding at the Vathy migrant reception facility. 

"Over the past few years, the island, and particularly its main town, is experiencing an unprecedented and tragic crisis, which has totally upset the normality of our lives," the mayor said, noting that the rising migrant population was creating security issues for islanders, their children, visitors but also the refugees themselves.

The goals of local authorities, he said, are "decongestion, here and now, boosting security for citizens of Samos in their daily lives, a more effective guarding of our borders, closing the Samos reception center…and speeding up the procedure of granting asylum to those who truly merit it." 

Authorities are on Monday scheduled to transfer some 700 migrants from the island to facilities on the mainland.