ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A major fire ravaged a notoriously overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on Wednesday, leaving thousands in need of emergency shelter. No injuries were reported.
To complicate matters, the Moria camp was under coronavirus lockdown when flames ravaged much of it overnight. Authorities have been scrambling to find a way to house camp residents left homeless while preventing the spread of the virus.
“The combination of migration and the pandemic in these conditions creates a particularly demanding situation,” said Minister Delegate for Migration Giorgos Koumoutsakos. Civil protection authorities have declared a state of emergency for four months for public health reasons in Lesbos.
Koumoutsakos said it appears the fire broke out “as a result of discontent” among some camp residents with lockdown measures and isolation orders imposed after 36 people tested positive for COVID-19.
The positive cases were detected through extensive testing and contact tracing after a Somali who returned to the camp after being granted asylum fell ill with the virus.
“I recognize the difficult circumstances,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, expressing sadness over the fire. “However, nothing can become an excuse for a violent reaction to health controls. And, even more so, for unrest of this magnitude.”
The Prime Minister added: “The situation in Moria cannot continue as it constitutes a matter of public health, humanity and national security.”
In dramatic scenes, men, women and children fled fires that broke out overnight in several locations and were fanned by strong winds, destroying much of the facilities and some of the surrounding hillside olive groves . Protests also broke out involving migrants, riot police and firefighters.
Police set up roadblocks to restrict access to Mytilene, the island’s main town.
Mitsotakis said homeless people would be temporarily housed in tents and all unaccompanied children and teenagers – just over 400 – would be transferred from the island. No other migrants or refugees would be allowed to leave, however.
Humanitarian agencies have long warned of dire conditions in Moria, where more than 12,500 people live in and around a facility built to house just over 2,750. The camp has become a symbol of what Critics view this as Europe’s failure to humanely manage the situation of migrants and refugees.
Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović noted similar overcrowded conditions on other Greek islands and said the situation could deteriorate there too.
The fire shows the urgency of rethinking the European approach to migration, “which has led to an overcrowded, inhumane and completely untenable situation in Moria and elsewhere on the Aegean islands”, Mijatovic said.
Under a 2016 deal between the European Union and Turkey aimed at stemming the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees, those arriving on Greek islands like Lesbos from the neighboring Turkish coast are there detained while awaiting deportation to Turkey or acceptance of their asylum applications.
Although the agreement significantly reduced the flow, delays in processing asylum applications and the continued arrival of hundreds of asylum seekers led the island camps to quickly exceed their capacity. Successive Greek governments have called on other European countries to share the burden.
“The problem of managing migration flows is after all a primarily European problem,” Mitsotakis said, stressing that Athens was in constant contact with European authorities on this issue. “Greece has already borne a burden far greater than its share. »
European authorities, who have often been criticized for not doing enough to ease the migration burden of southern countries like Greece, Italy and Spain, have offered help.
“We will not leave Greece alone in this situation – and above all – we will not leave the people in this camp alone,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.
“We have already offered our support to the Greek government… and we will also make this an issue during our (EU) Council presidency,” Maas added. “I believe that the European Union as a whole has a responsibility.”
Germany holds the rotating presidency of the EU. A spokesman for German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Berlin was in talks with Athens about what help Germany could provide.
Asked whether Seehofer would reconsider his objection to certain German states or cities voluntarily taking in refugees, spokesman Steve Alter said it was important to first see what was urgently needed, and that the current situation “is not a reason to question our current legal order. .”
Dutch Development Cooperation Minister Sigrid Kaag has pledged emergency aid of one million euros (about $1.2 million) to Greece to help provide accommodation, housing and care to migrants, while the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, said she had agreed to finance the transfer and accommodation of migrants. 400 unaccompanied children from Lesvos to the mainland.
In Spain’s Canary Islands, authorities are racing to build new migrant centers after a surge in arrivals made the western Atlantic route the deadliest route this year for migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa by sea. But the facilities will not be ready for months, leaving hundreds of people sleeping in tents.
Nearly 4,000 people arrived in the archipelago near West Africa between January 1 and the end of August, compared to 584 for the same period of 2019. More than 250 died, according to the International Organization for migrations.
In Moria, protests against living conditions and fires have already broken out, but Wednesday’s was by far the largest fire.
Greece’s interior and migration ministers, as well as the head of the country’s public health organization, traveled to Lesbos with emergency aid.
European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, in charge of migration issues, tweeted that he had been in contact with Mitsotakis and “assured him that the European Commission is ready to help Greece immediately at all levels during this difficult time.”
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Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, Aritz Parra in Madrid and Mike Corder in The Hague contributed.
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