While on the Greek island of Lesbos the Kara Tepe camp is closing, 6,000 people in the Moria 2 site are living in dire conditions, according to a new report issued by Oxfam and the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR). The groups call on authorities to revise the "de-facto detention system" for migrants.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has condemned the Greek government's decision to close the Kara Tepe 1 refugee camp on the island of Lesbos. The camp is considered "one of the few places that guaranteed security and dignity to nearly 400 vulnerable men, women and children."
In the Kara Tepe migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, thousands of people wait in squalid conditions in the hope of a transfer to another country. Congolese women stuck there tell InfoMigrants what daily life is like in this dirty and unstable camp.
The asylum 'hotspot' system established under the EU-Turkey deal five years ago has failed, according to a German think tank. In a new report, it warns that the EU must not repeat the mistakes of the Greek islands.
Two Afghan youths have been sentenced to five years in prison each. A juvenile court on Lesbos found them guilty of starting the fire that destroyed the Moria refugee camp in September last year.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has announced that the destroyed Moria migrant camp on Lesbos will not be rebuilt. A new structure elsewhere on the island will reportedly replace the temporary Kara Tepe camp.
Greece's migration minister has told a German newspaper that the temporary reception facility on Lesbos is 'largely' equipped for winter. Despite some improvements, however, images from residents in the camp show miserable conditions.
A number of NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, have urged the Greek government to be transparent about the details of the risks of lead poisoning at a migrant camp on Lesbos. They also urged for migrants to be evacuated as a precautionary measure.
Greece's government came under heavy criticism from all sides on Sunday, December 13, after the "tent city" migrant camp on the island of Lesbos was flooded for the third time following two days of heavy rainfall across the country.
Eighteen associations promoting the health rights of migrants and refugees have appealed to European governments and to EMPs to change the model of large holding centers in the new European pact on migration and asylum. Large centers, they said in the recent appeal, "have devastating effects on the mental health of refugees and asylum seekers."
Human Rights Watch has said that thousands of asylum seekers, aid workers and international personnel may be at risk of lead poisoning at the new migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The camp was constructed on a former military firing range after the Moria camp burned down.
After Greece's largest refugee camp was destroyed by a fire in September 2020, some 13,000 people were forced to make a home elsewhere. Around half of that group have been living in a makeshift overflow camp called Kara Tepe, where they say survival is even more difficult.