AKIPRESS.COM - Greece has begun evacuating thousands of stranded migrants from the makeshift Idomeni camp on its northern border with Macedonia, reports BBC.

The operation began at dawn and witnesses reported police vehicles and buses standing by to transfer people to better organised facilities.

Hundreds of riot police have been deployed but officials say force will not be used.

At least 8,400 people - many of them women and children - are at the camp.

Most of them had been on their way to northern Europe when they became stranded after Macedonia closed its border with Greece.

They have been promised much better facilities at newly-created asylum processing centres near Greece's second city Thessaloniki.

At least four bus loads of migrants were seen leaving the camp on Tuesday morning, with others leaving on foot or by taxi.

The migrants, mostly from conflict zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, had been reluctant to move away from the border - despite having to sleep in tents in very difficult conditions.