Reactions to Moria fires: ‘EU migration policy has gone up in flames too’

eactions to and speculation about the causes of a fire which has destroyed large parts of the migrant camp Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos are coming thick and fast. Now that almost 13,000 people are without shelter, what will politicians and the EU do? Some say the fire has sent current European migration policy up in flames too.

Non-governmental organizations and UN Agencies have been warning for months that the overcrowded conditions in migrant camps like Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos were ready to explode.

The restrictions placed on inhabitants by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the recent positive tests within the camp seem like the straw that broke the camel’s back, or, to quote one of the co-founders of Mission Lifeline, an NGO working to support migrants in the Mediterranean area, Axel Seier, “the locking down of the Moria camp [in the light of positive COVID tests] was the drop which caused the barrel to spill over.”

There were at least 35 coronavirus cases at Moria this week after a first person tested positive on Wednesday, September 2. Since then, the camp has been under a lockdown.

Anger

The barrel Seier is referring to spilled over spectacularly during the night between September 8 and 9. Some of the pictures from the agencies show hellish scenes of tents and people silhouetted black against angry red and yellow flames. The morning after has brought singed ground, and just the metal frames sticking up at angles to testify that this area was once home to almost 13,000 people. The Greek migration ministry’s latest figures confirm that 12,600 migrants and refugees were resident in and around the camp.

Fonte: infomigrants.net

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