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Protesters from the far right march against the transfer of migrants from the Greek islands to the mainland on 3 November 2019 in Thessaloniki. Sakis MITROLIDIS / AFP

Since this summer, Greece has seen a rise in the number of asylum seekers from Turkey, saturating the five centers of the Greek islands. However, the transfer of a small portion of these migrants to mainland Greece is sometimes met with hostility by some residents, who organized three protests against the arrival of refugees in ten days.

With our correspondent in Athens, Joël Bronner

Four years after the 2015 migration crisis, Greece is once again the main entry point for asylum seekers in Europe. A state of affairs that generates some tension in the population.

In the northern part of Greece, in Yannitsa, with 30,000 inhabitants, several dozen people opposed the arrival of a bus of 60 migrants - the city already had on its soil about sixty other asylum seekers . The situation was eventually unblocked by police intervention.

Serres, in the north-east of the country, has 80,000 residents. There, too, a hostile demonstration hosted the transfer of some 20 migrants from the Aegean islands.

Ten days ago, residents of Nea Vrasna (North) blocked the arrival of 380 asylum-seekers, including throwing stones at the vehicles, which finally changed their destination.

By the end of the year, the Greek government plans to transfer 20,000 people from the islands to the mainland. In parallel, Athens has just adopted a law complicating the granting of asylum , with the aim of multiplying, in the future, expulsions to third countries.