Greece’s Deputy Migration Policy Minister, Giorgos Koumoutsakos said that Lesvos saw a 44 percent increase in illegal immigration due to new ‘corridors’ of refugee and migrant flows.
Koumoutsakos made the claims during a media interview published in the Sunday edition of Kathimerini newspaper adding that the new ‘corridors’ have been formed in the last months between Alexandroupolis and Samothrace.
The 44 percent increase in flows on Lesvos in comparison with the same period in 2018, brings extra pressure to the already suffocating condition at Moria migrant processing centre in Lesvos.
The minister accused the SYRIZA government of low performance on the issue of re-admissions and Turkey of not succeeding to uproot the traffickers’ rings and of inefficient supervision of its coasts.
Koumoutsakos reiterated that his ministry is elaborating a proposal at EU level on the readmissions and is in contact with the Republic of Cyprus and other EU state members to support it.
He said that the government's main priorities is the protection of the borders and the strict supervision at the hotspots, the decongestion of the islands and the acceleration of the asylum procedures in order to be held more effectively and always with respect to the international law.
