Tighter controls explored at deportation camps

The Greek government is planning stricter controls on how migrants slated for deportation come and go from two camps that are currently in quarantine due to coronavirus outbreaks.

“The trend right now – regardless of the epidemic – is for all new centers to have controlled comings and goings, which will be allowed only during certain hours of the day,” the head of the Greek chapter of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Gianluca Rocco, said Monday. 

“The government is working on a system with cards that registered residents will have to show at the entrance and exit.”

The camps, in Malakassa, north of Athens, and in Serres, northern Greece, are managed by the IOM, but are under the jurisdiction of Greece’s Migration Ministry.

They are home to some 2,000 undocumented migrants who entered Greece from Turkey in March and are not entitled to apply for asylum.