Didymoteicho

Residents of Orestiada in the Evros border region in northwestern Greece greeted visiting Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis on Monday with a hail of stones, firecrackers, eggs and plastic cups of coffee to express their opposition to government plans to increase the capacities of the local reception and identification center for asylum seekers and the pre-departure detention facility.

Η παίκτρια μεταφέρθηκε σε κλινική στον Άγιο Δομίνικο

Δύο αγοράκια έκαναν… ποδαρικό στον Άγιο Νικόλαο

A foreign national was arrested in Greece on Wednesday afternoon after he was found with thousands of pills of an unspecified drug which he had smuggled into the country from Turkey.

The man was detained by officers of the local anti-drugs squad in a rural area near Didymoteicho, at the border region of Evros.

As reactions to the transfer of migrants from the islands to the mainland intensify, local protests are also mounting in northern Greece over increasing arrivals from Turkey across the Evros River.

Despite plummeting temperatures, arrivals of migrants from Turkey through the Evros border region in northeastern Greece are at a high level for the time of the year, as smugglers are reportedly constantly finding new entry routes.

Some 870 migrants were arrested for illegally entering the country in December 2018. The number of arrests in December 2017 was 502.

Greek authorities say 18 people were hospitalized after the latest in a string of often fatal road accidents involving vehicles smuggling migrants through northern Greece.

Police say a van driven by a suspected migrant smuggler and crammed with another 46 people veered off a road and crashed near the northeastern town of Didymoteicho overnight Wednesday.

A van carrying 20 undocumented migrants crashed on Wednesday during an attempt by their suspected smuggler to evade arrest near the border town of Soufli in Evros.

According to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, the driver lost control of the vehicle after trying to do a U-turn to avoid a police inspection and plunged into a ditch.

Greek police discovered the bodies of three women on Oct. 10 near the banks of the River Evros (Maritsa or Meriç) which marks the border with Turkey, and is a crossing for migrants and asylum seekers.

Police in northern Greece are questioning two foreign nationals, both aged 28, who were stopped near the Turkish border on Friday with just over a kilogram of heroin in their possession.

The two men, who are believed to be members of a cross-border drug smuggling racket, were caught near the border town of Didymoteicho.