Derelict Iraklio warehouse picked as detention center for migrants on Crete

The migration ministry said Thursday it has picked an abandoned former warehouse complex on the outskirts of Iraklion on Crete to be converted into a new temporary detention center for migrants reaching the southern island from north Africa.

Plans for a second migrant center on Crete, after the first one that has opened outside the town of Hania, have angered local residents in Iraklio, with scores of people gathering outside the proposed site late Wednesday to protest its potential selection.

Crete has seen a surge in migratory flows this year, with nearly 8,000 people arriving so far in small boats provided by smuggling rings, which depart from eastern Libya.

Total migrant arrivals nationwide since January 1 are just over 14,000, according to United Nations data.

Greek authorities say most of the people arriving on Crete are economic migrants rather than refugees, and have threatened tough measures to dissuade them from making the journey.

The migration ministry said Thursday that the proposed Iraklio “hospitality and processing” facility, about 10 kilometers outside the city center, was expected to be ready to open by the end of July. It will function as a so-called “closed center” with migrants not allowed out.

Ministry officials said the site “will not place any burden on local society” and was picked following exhaustive talks with local authorities “and as we have now reached the height of the summer” and a temporary site in use in the area is not suited to the job.

Iraklio municipal authorities said in a statement that they would discuss the issue on Monday, adding that according to ministry officials migrants will stay at the center for two or three days to be registered and will then be shifted on to other facilities on mainland Greece.

The statement said Iraklio Mayor Alexis Kalokairinos asked Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris “before he finalises the decision to take into account questions, mostly concerning the environment and civil protection, that local residents have raised.”