Migrants who fled the Moria camp blaze one week ago are still living on the streets in grim conditions, with no proper shelter or sanitation, fuelling fears of a future surge in coronavirus cases.
Greek police have arrested six people in connection with the fire that razed the Moria migrant camp on Lesbos Island last week. The suspects are reportedly Afghan nationals whose asylum applications were rejected.
One week after flames swept through the Moria migrant camp, thousands of people from Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa are still living alongside a stretch of road on the island of Lesbos. They sleep rough in makeshift shelters and have very limited access to food and water supplies. InfoMigrants reports.
The situation on the Greek island of Lesbos is tense, as migrants and refugees remain stranded. Athens is now trying to pour oil on troubled waters, but things have long since gotten out of control.
Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis laid out plans to swiftly build a migrant reception center on Lesbos to rehouse the more than 12,000 migrants left homeless after last week's fire. But the plans have been met with criticism by locals and migrants alike. Mitsotakis has also attacked the EU for not doing more to help.
Thousands of migrants have refused to enter the new tent settlement erected by Greek authorities after flames swept through the Moria camp, saying that they wanted to leave the island of Lesbos. As humanitarian conditions worsen, InfoMigrants talked to several asylum seekers who have only one demand: leave Lesbos.
Migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos are angry about conditions after a catastrophic fire ripped through a large camp set up to house them. Riot police responded with tear gas after some protesters threw stones.
Greece has opened a 3,000-capacity tent camp for the migrants made homeless by the Moria fire — but amid unrest over conditions only a few hundred have entered so far. Athens says they will all be housed within a week.
After fires destroyed Europe's largest refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, politicians and organizations have been debating about how to house the camp’s former residents. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s initiative means that 10 European countries have decided to take nearly 400 unaccompanied children from the Moria camp in Greece.
Three days after multiple fires destroyed most of the Moria migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, thousands of the former residents are still sleeping out in the open. Although the authorities are starting to offer emergency accommodation for some, their efforts are being contested by some locals. Charities working with migrants in the area say provision is so far “ineffective.”
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced ten EU countries would take in a share of 400 unaccompanied minors. The EU is also set to propose a new agreement on migration and asylum in the bloc.
Firefighters have tried to contain new blazes at Moria just a day after thousands of refugees fled fires at the camp. Critics have called on the EU to rethink migration policy, calling the fire a "political disaster."