Greece on Saturday opened two new closed camps for asylum seekers on the islands of Leros and Kos, a model criticized by human rights defenders for the strict controls imposed there.

“A new era is beginning,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said when announcing the opening of these two new camps.

Greece plans to open two other new secure camps on the islands of Lesvos and Chios.

The new secure camps, surrounded by barbed wire, equipped with surveillance cameras and magnetic gates where asylum seekers must present electronic badges and their fingerprints to be able to enter, are closed at night.

They are also equipped with amenities such as running water, toilets and better security conditions that were absent in the old camps.

Asylum seekers can go out during the day but must return in the evening.

One million asylum seekers in 2015

These new facilities that Greece has pledged to set up with funds from the European Union to the tune of 276 million euros, are expected to replace the old squalid camps where thousands of migrants crowded in conditions unhealthy. "We are freeing our islands from the problem of migrants and its consequences," added the Minister. "The images of the years 2015-2019 are now a thing of the past".

The first secure camp of this type was opened in September on the island of Samos, after the dismantling of the old camp, a veritable slum, which had housed nearly 7,000 asylum seekers at the height of the migration crisis between 2015 and 2016 Greece had been the main gateway through which more than a million asylum seekers, mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, had arrived in Europe in 2015. The situation in Afghanistan raised concerns. arrival of a new wave of migrants.

However, NGOs have expressed concern about the isolation of those accommodated there, believing that their freedom of movement should not be subject to such severe restrictions.

According to UN estimates, some 96,000 refugees and asylum seekers are on Greek territory.

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