The mayor of the northeastern port of Alexandroupoli, Evangelos Lambakis, on Wednesday lashed out at Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias following the latter's decision to transfer hundreds of undocumented immigrants to unused police academy facilities in Komotini, Xanthi and Didymoteicho.

"The Public Order Minister wants to turn the capital's problem with immigration into a problem for Thrace,» Lambakis told Skai. «We are in a state of war,» Lambakis said, noting that local residents who vehemently object to the planned transfer of the migrants are to stage a protest rally in the city's central square on Wednesday evening.

The mayor described Dendias as «unreliable.» «I don't believe him, whatever he says, and I don't believe that they only aim to detain the migrants temporarily at the police academy units, for 30 or 60 days,» he said.

Lambakis stressed that the region already has problems «such as that of different religions,» a reference to Thrace's Muslim minority.

Dendias met on Tuesday with local authority officials and members of social and business groups from Thrace but appears to have had little success in convincing them of the need to transfer migrants to the area.