Greece shuts down migrant detention centre on island

Athens - The Greek government shut down a detention centre on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos on Monday, after months of criticism from the United Nations refugee agency about conditions facing migrants housed there. 'We have shut down the centre of Pagani,' Deputy Civil Protection Minister Spyros Vougias told an immigration conference in Athens. Vougias, who paid a visit to the centre soon after the Socialist party was elected to power on October 4, had described it as 'Dante's Inferno.' 'The conditions there are unbearable, inhuman and go against human dignity.' Pagani was designed to accommodate 200 people, but an influx of migrants meant it often houses 1,200 migrants. Vougias said the center would be temporarily closed to undergo improvements. Officials said the migrants currently held at the center were in the process of being moved to other migrants centers on nearby islands. Sitting at the crossroads of three continents, Greece has become the main transit point for tens of thousands of immigrants seeking entry into the European Union via Turkey. Greece has come under strong criticism from the UN refugees agency UNHCR for its reluctance to grant asylum to genuine refugees and for horrible conditions at migrant reception centres after repeated reports of police brutality came to light. The country's new Socialist government has promised to improve human right conditions for immigrants while at the same time it is asking for European help to protect its long coastal border from an influx of illegal immigrants. Officials on the eastern Aegean islands of Mytilini, Samos and Patmos have been besieged with almost daily boatloads of migrants chiefly illegal immigrants being chiefly Iraqis, Afghans, and Palestinians. Arrivals from Africa, mainly Somalia, are also increasing - a sign that routes to Italy and Spain are proving more arduous. Many are reported to be thrown overboard in the dangerous Aegean waters by human traffickers evading coast guard police, with hundreds drowning every year. Eight Afghanis, including five children, drowned last week off the coast of Lesvos after their vessel capsized. The immigrants are often trying to escape war zones in Africa and end up paying thousands of dollars to smuggling rings for their assistance to reach the west. Mytilini is considered one of the main points of arrival for the illegal immigrants and in 2008 more than 13,000 illegal immigrants entered Greece via the island or Samos.