ATHENS, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Turkey seems to remain committed to stemming the refugee flow to Europe and there is no "alarming" increase of refugees to Greek islands after the failed coup, Deputy Minister for Migration Policy Yannis Mouzalas said Friday.
"On average there are 80 to 100 new arrivals per day. This was the average flow from the start of the implementation of the agreement. Therefore, talk about an increase and imminent collapse of the deal is wrong and creates unnecessary panic," the Greek official stressed after a meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
According to Greek national news agency AMNA, Mouzalas assured that initial concern on the European side that developments in Ankara this summer may affect the March 20 EU-Turkey deal to curb the irregular influx of migrants and refugees into Europe was unfounded.
He did acknowledge, however, that since the implementation of the agreement, which put an end to the irregular flows to the mainland, there was a significant congestion issue with overcrowded migrant reception centers on the islands which makes more difficult the everyday life of both refugees and locals.
Mouzalas underlined that the government had stepped up efforts to accelerate the processing of refugees and to decongest the islands by gradually transferring some of the people whom are to be deported to detention centers in the mainland.
In addition, more hospitality facilities are being constructed, he noted. In autumn, some 2,000 people will be relocated on Crete island in four new such centers, he said.
Currently, after the closing of the Balkan route to central Europe and the launch of the March 20 deal, there are approximately 57,000 migrants and refugees stranded in Greece, according to the refugee crisis management coordinating committee.
About 10,000 people are trapped on the northeast Aegean Sea islands, 20,000 in northern Greece, another 10,000 in Attica region and the rest scattered in other centers across the country.
In a recent open letter to Tsipras, the governor of the North Aegean Region Christina Kalogirou noted that more than 8,000 people had applied for asylum and on average 60-70 applications are processed by authorities daily.
Athens insists that the situation is manageable and far better than the situation in 2015 when more than one million people landed on Greece's shores seeking refuge in Europe.
The government has pledged to further improve their accommodation with multilateral assistance. According to the latest official data from the European Commission and Greek authorities, so far less than 1,000 refugees have been relocated to other European countries under last year's agreement for the relocation of several thousands people within two years. Less than 500 have been returned to Turkey under March's deal.
Meanwhile, despite the improvement of conditions in state-run accommodation centers, challenges remain.
A hepatitis A outbreak was reported at the Nea Kavala refugee center in northern Greece this week. Eight children and adolescents aged 2-18 were hospitalized at the nearby hospital of Kilkis, according to an announcement from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention.
Two have been discharged and the rest are showing improvement, according to a hospital press release.
The center arranged inoculations from August 17 for 158 people who came in contact with the children as a precaution measure, the head of Macedonia and Thrace's 4th Health Region Authority Stratis Plomaritis told AMNA.
