Greek authorities began the gradual evacuation of the country’s largest informal refugee camp Tuesday, persuading more than 1,500 people to leave the Idomeni site for other organized facilities in northern Greece.
An estimated 700 police were participating in the operation, but there were no reports of violence or protests.
Greece’s left-led government has pledged that no force will be used, and says the operation is expected to last between a week and 10 days. Journalists were blocked from entering the camp.
By late afternoon, 32 buses carrying a total of 1,529 people had left Idomeni on the country’s border with Macedonia, police said, while earth-moving machinery was used to clear abandoned tents.
Vicky Markolefa, a representative of the Doctors Without Borders charity, said the operation was proceeding “very smoothly” and without incident. “We hope it will continue like that,” she said.
The camp, which sprang up at an informal pedestrian border crossing for refugees and migrants heading north to wealthier European nations, was home to an estimated 8,400 people – including hundreds of children – mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
At its peak, when Macedonia shut its border in March, the camp housed more than 14,000, but numbers have declined as people began accepting authorities’ offers of alternative places to stay.
In Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said the evacuation appeared to be taking place “calmly,” and the U.N. refugee agency was sending more staffers to Idomeni.
“As long as the movement of people from Idomeni is . . . voluntary in nature (and) that we’re not seeing use of force, then we don’t have particular concerns about that,” he said.
“It often does help to move people into more organized sites, when they’re willing to move to those places,” he added.
In Idomeni, most have been living in small camping tents pitched in fields and along railroad tracks, while aid agencies have set up large marquee-style tents to help house people. Greek authorities have sent in cleaning crews regularly and have provided portable toilets, but conditions have been precarious at best, with heavy rain creating muddy ponds.
Recently the camp had begun taking on an image of semi-permanence, with refugees setting up small makeshift shops selling everything from cooking utensils to falafel and bread.
More than 54,000 refugees and migrants have been trapped in financially struggling Greece since countries further north shut their land borders to a massive flow of people escaping war and poverty at home. Nearly a million people have passed through Greece, the vast majority arriving on islands from the nearby Turkish coast.
In March, the European Union reached an agreement with Turkey meant to stem the flow and reduce the number of people undertaking the perilous sea crossing to Greece, where many have died when their overcrowded, unseaworthy boats sank. Under the deal, anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands from the Turkish coast after March 18 faces deportation to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece.