The Kara Tepe tent camp on the island of Lesvos will shut down within the next few weeks, Notis Mitarakis, the Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum announced on Thursday.
The camp provided temporary accommodation for thousands of migrants following the fire that destroyed Greece's largest migrant camp in September last year.
Mitarakis said that the Kara Tepe camp, which had been erected on public land, will shut down and be turned over to the island’s residents “within the next few weeks.”
Its facilities will be moved to a new area of nearly 59 acres near the city of Mytilene, the capital of the island.
The new center’s capacity will be 3,000 and is expected to be completed by November of 2021.
The minister also said that all migrants currently staying at Kara Tepe have been interviewed and a decision on whether they have been granted asylum or not has been made and is pending delivery.
Referring to the decongestion of the island, which bore the brunt of the crush of the migrant influx to Greece, Mitarakis said that 6,000 refugees were transferred out of Lesvos.
The number of asylum seekers between January 2020 and January 2021 also dropped by 58%, from a high of 20,868 down to 8,764.
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