Greece makes arrests, takes steps to tackle migrant crisis

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek authorities detained six foreigners for suspected human trafficking on Wednesday as the interim government announced new new measures to tackle a crisis that has seen hundreds of migrants and refugees arriving on Greek shores every day. Four Bulgarians and two Turkish citizens were detained in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki for trafficking 103 migrants from Turkey to Greece, a police official said on Wednesday. The traffickers had charged the Syrian migrants 2,000 euros (1,469 pounds) per head to transport them to Greece and then on to Macedonia. The migrants were found packed in a lorry. Greece has seen a rise in the number of refugees and migrants -- mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- arriving on rubber dinghies via nearby Turkey this summer, with aid agencies estimating about 2,000 crossing over daily last month. The government announced plans on Wednesday to set up a new operations centre and to take steps to improve conditions at existing refugee centres, which the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR has previously described as "shameful". The operations centre will comprise officials from the army, the police, the coast guard, the interior ministry and the health ministry, the government said in a statement. The government also wants to quickly absorb more European Union funds earmarked to tackle the migrant crisis and speed up the registration process for asylum seekers. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou and George Georgiopoulos; editing by Matthias Williams and Angus MacSwan)