Hours after the fire at morias migrant hot spot in Lasbos European Commission’s spokesperson Natasha Bertaud, said the Greek government had described the situation as being under control. Transfers to the mainland, she said, would remain limited.
“To avoid secondary movement to the rest of Europe, that means keeping asylum seekers on the islands for the most part,” Bertaud said.
More than 60,000 migrants and refugees are stranded in transit in Greece, and those who arrived after March 20 have been restricted to five Aegean islands under an EU-brokered deal to deport them back to Turkey. But the agreement has been fraught with delays.
On the islands of the northeast Aegean, official facilities have a capacity of 5,450 places, but more than 10,500 people are there. There are currently 5,600 migrants stuck on the island of Lesvos that before the fire had a capacity for just 3,500.
The Moria refugee camp had problems before the blaze, including issues of scarcity, squalor and overcrowding. Fred Morlet, director of volunteer coordination at the camp told DW last week that Moria was “the worst refugee camp in the world.”
The government is expected to charter passenger ferries to provide temporary accommodation, and increase the police presence on Lesvos – defending the deportation deal that came under renewed criticism from human rights groups. Greece’s merchant marine ministry said the ships are needed to satisfy an “immediate and urgent need to host, cater and perhaps transfer” at least 1,000 people displaced after the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos was destroyed by fire.
“The EU and Greece cannot carry on stockpiling refugees indefinitely on the Greek islands,” Amnesty International’s Giorgos Kosmopoulos said.
Source: eKathimerini, Sputnik, BBC
