ATHENS, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Greece faces a new refugee crisis with reception centers overflowing and EU's support to address it is necessary, Giorgos Koumoutsakos, the country's Alternate Minister for Citizen Protection, told the Greek parliament on Tuesday.
The Greek official expressed concern over the effect Turkey's operation into Syria may have on refugee flows, noting that already from May until October this year there has been a dramatic hike in numbers, while 75,000 asylum bids are still pending, Greek national news agency AMNA reported.
New arrivals of refugees and migrants in Greece from January until September this year were 24 percent higher compared to the same period last year, according to the latest report by UNHCR released earlier this month.
A total of 46,100 crossed into Greece from the land borders with Turkey or via the Aegean Sea from January to September, according to the official statistics, while in the first nine months of 2018 the number was 37,300.
Over 12,000 people arrived in Greece in September this year, according to UNHCR, which is a record high since March 2016, when the EU-Turkey agreement was launched to stem the influx of the first massive wave that started in 2015.
Currently approximately 30,000 people are stranded on five Aegean Sea islands in camps which were designed to accommodate a total of 5,400 people, according to the official data.
Overcrowding in difficult conditions combined with lengthy procedures when it comes to the review of asylum applications, have created an explosive mixture.
By dawn Tuesday, a large part of the camp on Samos island that was designed to host 650 people and accommodated 5,700 was destroyed after a fire broke out last night during clashes among asylum seekers of different nationalities, AMNA reported.
No injuries were reported by the fire and thousands of asylum seekers were transferred to other open-air facilities inside and outside the town.
On Lesvos island the population at Moria's reception center reached an all-time record of more than 13,000 people on Tuesday, according to AMNA.
The island has received half of the over one million arrivals since 2015, most continued their journey to other European countries until the closure of borders in the Balkan route in winter 2016.
A few weeks ago a woman lost her life during a fire which broke out at Moria during protests by residents.
Thousands of refugees have been transferred to the mainland as part of the Greek state's efforts to decongest the islands, but hundreds of new arrivals are recorded every day.
Greece has repeatedly requested in recent years for a more proportional sharing of the burden among EU member-states.
