Regional units of Greece

A new wet front that brought heavy showers and thunderstorms to western Greece and the Ionian has wreaked widespread destruction, causing floods, uprooting trees and damaging roofs and roads on the island of Zakynthos, officials of the General Secretariat of Civil Protection said on Wednesday.

Greece will shut down its largest three migrant camps on islands facing Turkey, and replace them with new facilities, AFP reported, citing officials.
The Greek government said it would close existing, overcrowded camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, and replace them with new closed facilities with a capacity of at least 5,000 people each.

The Greek government on Wednesday announced plans to set up five closed pre-departure centers for migrants on the Aegean islands of Samos, Chios, Lesvos, Kos and Leros.

A total of 70 more asylum seekers arrived at the country's main port of Piraeus on Wednesday morning as part of the Greek government's ongoing transfers from overcrowded facilities on the Aegean islands.

Five closed pre-departure centers for migrants are expected to open on the Aegean islands of Samos, Chios, Lesvos, Kos and Leros, with details to be announced by government spokesman Stelios Petsas on Wednesday. 

The centers are to host no more than 5,000 people each and are expected to replace the open camps such as Moria and Vathy. 

A 54-year-old Greek man faced a prosecutor on Monday charged with the fatal beating of a 40-year-old foreign national on the Ionian island of Ithaki on Saturday.

The alleged perpetrator's 42-year-old wife, who was present at the time of the beating, notified police after finding the 40-year-old dead in a hotel room on Sunday.

At least 658 migrants and refugees were rescued in 20 separate operations in the eastern Aegean between Friday morning and Monday morning, the Greek coast guard said.
In the same period, a total of 730 migrants and refugees landed on the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Farmakonisi and Kastellorizo (or Megisti) after crossing from Turkey, the coast guard said.

Despite opposition from local communities, the Citizens' Protection Ministry is intent on implementing the government's plan to distribute asylum seekers among regional units across the country as part of the initiative to decongest overcrowded camps on the Greek islands.

Greek authorities on Monday found 41 undocumented migrants crammed into a refrigerator truck on the Egnatia Highway in northern Greece.

The truck driver, a Georgian man, was detained after police stopped the vehicle at a junction between Xanthi and Komotini and found the migrants in an inspection. 

Residents of Chios early on Monday blocked the road leading to the island's Vial reception facility in a protest against the camp's growing migrant population. 

The residents have said that they will scale up their protests if central government authorities do not extend an operation to decongest the camps on Lesvos and Samos to their island too.