Idomeni: Riot police deployed in bid to evacuate Greek refugee camp

People are being taken to a new organised camp in the city of Thessaloniki in the north of Greece

Greek authorities have sent in more than 400 riot police in a bid to evacuate the country’s largest makeshift refugee camp of Idomeni on the Macedonian border. The government spokesman for the refugee crisis, Giorgos Kyritsis, said on Monday the police would not use force and expected the operation to last between a week and ten days. The operation began at dawn on Tuesday. About 20 buses carrying riot police were seen heading in to the camp, with an estimated 700 police participating in the re-settlement.

Buses carrying people from the camps began leaving two hours after the evacuation started, leaving for a new refugee camp in the city of Thessaloniki in the north, about an hour away. Authorities and police say people will be moved to newly completed camps with better conditions. Camp residents have already been asked to leave and have been offered the option of heading to organised camps by the government. Police reported about 400 people voluntarily left Idomeni on Sunday and headed to Thessalonik or the nearby town of Polycastro.

Greek authorities pan to reopen the railway line which runs through the camp, and is the country’s main freight line to the Balkans, which has been blocked by protesting camp residents since March 20. The camp, which was originally planned for 2,500 people, has been home to about 8,400 people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq who were heading to Europe.

A bus moves a migrant family to an organized camp during an operation to evacuate the makeshift refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border (AP)

The numbers climbed to an estimated 14,000 when Macedonia shut its border in March, but numbers have since declined following alternative options of places to stay. The border closing led to increasingly worse conditions in the camp, which were made poorer due to heavy rain. In a bid to combat the worsening conditions, aid agencies set up large marquee-style tents to help house people and Greek authorities provided portable toilets.

Greek policemen stand next to migrants at a makeshift refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border (AP)

Recently, the camp has become more semi-permanent with reports indicating refugees setting up makeshift shops selling cooking items and food.

An estimated 54,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in Greece following Balkan and European countries shutting their borders to stop the flow of people. On the eve of the evacuation operation, few at the camp appeared to welcome the news.

“It's much better here than in the camps. That's what everybody who's been there said,” Hind Al Mkawi, a 38-year-old refugee from Damascus, told Associated Press on Monday evening.

“I've heard [of the pending evacuation] too,” she said. “It's not good ... because we've already been here for three months and we'll have to spend at least another six in the camps before relocation. It's a long time. We don't have money or work – what will we do?”

Abdo Rajab, a 22-year-old refugee from Raqqa in Syria, has spent the past three months in Idomeni, and is now considering paying smugglers to be taken to Germany clandestinely.

“We hear that tomorrow we will all go to camps,” he said. “I don't mind, but my aim is not reach the camps but to go Germany.”