“Greek and foreign organisations for human rights but also, more recently, the mayor of Acharnes have reported that conditions at the Amygdaleza concentration camp are inhuman and humiliating, a fact made worse by the high temperatures,” the party said.

SYRIZA called for the immediate launch of an investigation to determine whether migrants were beaten when police units entered the facility to quell the riot .

The party also called for the immediate closure of camps and their replacement with hospitality centres for migrants and refugees needing international protection.

Meanwhile, the Greek police has denied that conditions for detained migrants at the Amygdaleza  center in Athens were unsuitable after a riot broke out on Saturday and 10 immigrants escaped from the facility, according to Kathimerini.

“We take all the necessary measures so holding conditions are respectable and that there is no chance of escape,” police spokesman Christos Parthenis told Mega TV.

Riot police were dispatched on Saturday to put down a riot at Greece’s main migrant detention camp where detainees hurled stones at officers and set fire to their living quarters, authorities said, AFP writes.

Violent riots broke out at the centre late on Saturday night and continued until the early hours of Sunday morning.

Television footage showed fires blazing at the Amygdaleza detention camp outside Athens, where some 1,200 mainly Asian migrants are kept under police guard.

Amygdaleza is one of several detention camps set up since last year to assist in the repatriation of thousands of undocumented migrants.

The police spokesman said rioting began when the detainees were told that their maximum stay in the camp would be extended to 18 months from a year previously.

According to AMNA, during a head count on Sunday, ten of the foreign nationals being held at the facility were found to be missing.

At the time of the visit, there were 56 persons detained in one cluster of containers that was operational.

“What remains critical for UNHCR is the procedure, criteria and conditions of police operations leading to mass arrests of undocumented aliens, with a view to transfer them to Amygdaleza detention centre, as well as to other centres that are to be created in the future.”

UNHCR also remained expressed doubts by the fact that access to the asylum procedure at the Attica Aliens Directorate in Petrou Ralli, as well as at other police directorates around the country, remains even today significantly limited. Therefore, among those arrested with a view to be removed from the country, there may be persons in need of international protection, who, nevertheless, were unable to submit their asylum claim.

According to the current legislation, administrative detention of undocumented aliens is allowed only for a limited period of time and only ahead of their removal from the country. In case their removal is not possible (due to legal or practical reasons), the effectiveness of the detention measure is doubtful.

“Each week, more than 100 people, including some women and children, waiting all night outside the Aliens in Petrou Ralli, hoping to be able to submit their request for asylum.”

Greece received 9,310 asylum applications in 2011, ranking 14th among receiving countries, accoridng to UNHCR statistics.

A total of 1,200 migrants are to be moved into the center until mid-May. Then additional centers are to open in different parts of the country, according to Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis   who insists that this project will solve Greece’s problem with illegal immigration.

Meanwhile,  Amygdaleza deputy mayor Chrysanthos Kontaris on Monday said a lawsuit has been filed against Greek police and Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis after the detention center for illegal migrants opened in the area, insisting that the containers  were originally set up to house people hit by natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Despite reaction by local residents and rights groups, with the transfer of dozens of migrants detained over the past few days in police sweeps in central Athens, were transferred to Amygdaleza center.

Police said they transferred a group of 56 migrants in the early afternoon and were to move another 164 into the center late last night.

Residents staged a protest against the center outside the police training school which is adjacent to the facility, Kathimerini reported

Dozens more are expected at the camp in the next few days, which can will be housing 1,200 people unitl mid-May, according to Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis.

Amygdaleza is the first of about 30 camps that Greek officials say will be built by mid-2013. It consists of dozens of containers that were originally set up to house people hit by natural disasters such as earthquakes.

The minister noted, in a posting on his Twitter account Sunday, that the opening of the first facility was a success. “With Amygdaleza we have proven that a government can and should work even a few days before elections,” he said

“The biggest lesson learned from the current humanitarian crisis in the center of Athens is that governance without political costs-that is trying to fool the world by ignoring the problems of keeping everyone happy, all come back to you in the future,” said Michalis Chrysochoidis referring to the opening of the first Restricted Hospitality Center in Amygdaleza.

The Commission “is positively willing to buy specifically equipped prefabricated buildings, funding the renovation of 200 containers and covering the center’s operational cost,” he said, according to Kathimerini.

The first of 30 Greece plans to set up over the next two years, has caused a dispute between his ministry and another putting the plans for the detention center, in danger.

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Makis Voridis said the shelters on the site were for seismic protection and are the responsibility of his own ministry, Mr. Chrysohoidis said and  that there is no issue will be based on the existing program.

In a letter to Chrysochoidis, Voridis said, “I do not consent to their requested use by your ministry”, according to Kathimerini.

Even though this dispute was not discussed with the European Comission in Brussels, Chrysochoidis faced condemnation for the detention conditions of migrants in Greece.

He responded that illegal immigration into Greece has been persistent and accused Turkey for failing to respect a bilateral treaty for the repatriation of undocumented migrants while he stressed the need to implement the EU readmission agreement with Turkey

The Greek minister called on the Council for Justice and Home Affairs, which is due to meet in Luxembourg tomorrow, to vote on the readmission agreement with Turkey.

According to Greek media reports, the second temporary detention or so “closed hospitality centers”, is going to start operating near the small town of Deskati, in the northern prefecture of Grevena, after the May 6 elections.

Local residents are open to the project however, unlike residents in Amygdaleza, according Deskati Mayor Nikos Migos. “The local community does not only believe that the center will not be a problem but that it will bring us significant benefits,” Migos told Kathimerini, referring that  the facility would create 150 police jobs, 350 more jobs for guards and another 350 in other sector

Meanwhile, in a new statement to address illegal immigration, Mr. Chrysohoidis announced on Tuesday that it will raid apartments, mainly in central Athens, where thousands of undocumended immigrants live in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions. The minister warned that property owners of these overcrowded apartments of sometimes “30 or 50 people in crammed spaces of 50 to 100 square meters” illigal immigrants will be arrested.

On radio, Minister of Citizen Protection said that “Athens will BE clear in a few days, today or tomorrow  we will announce that the apartments in which undocumented immigrants live en masse will be empty and the owners prosecuted.”