Some 500 migrants to be evacuated from makeshift Patra camps

Around 500 migrants and asylum seekers staying in makeshift camps near the western port of Patra to organized facilities in other parts of the country, Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas told lawmakers in Athens on Friday.

Vitsas was responding to a question by Democratic Alliance MP Theodoros Papatheodorou concerning reports of a rise in crime in the port area that authorities attribute to two squats in abandoned factories housing dozens of migrants trying to sneak onto a ferryboat to Italy.

He said there are no plans to build an official migrant camp in the Achaia region - an idea that has already been opposed by local authorities and residents -  but that the 500 or so migrants and asylum seekers staying at the two squats would be evacuated, possibly by the end of the month.

"We have heard reports of more than 100 altercations taking place between the migrants,...