Refugees in limbo after Lesbos blaze
Migrants left homeless after fires destroy camp prompt calls for evacuation despite Greek opposition
‘Our home burned, my shoes burned, we don’t have food, no water’
THOUSANDS of refugees and migrants left homeless on Lesbos by huge fires that destroyed their camp will not be evacuated from the island because the blazes were deliberately started, the Greek government said yesterday.
Greek officials and senior firefighters claim the fires started in several different places at the same time and were deliberately lit by migrants protesting against the implementation of quarantine measures after around 35 of them tested positive for Covid-19.
Stelios Petsas, the Greek government spokesman, said the asylum seekers who set the fires “did so because they considered that if they torch Moria, they will indiscriminately leave the island. We tell them they did not understand. They will not leave because of the fire. Some people do not respect the country that is hosting them”.
The announcement appeared to dash the hopes of charities and NGOS who are calling for the closure of the devastated Moria camp and the immediate transfer of all 12,500 asylum seekers to the Greek mainland and eventual settlement in EU countries.
Humanitarian organisations say that with the camp burned to the ground, and islanders fiercely opposed to the building of a new facility, the only option is to move the migrants and refugees off Lesbos.
Médecins Sans Frontières called on the Greek authorities to “evacuate all these people to a safe place on the mainland or to other European countries.” Refugees International said the Greek government should transfer people to the mainland, after which “EU member states must step up to relocate the asylum seekers”.
But Mr Petsas, the government spokesman, said the only migrants who would be allowed to leave were 400 unaccompanied children and teenagers who have been flown to Thessaloniki in northern Greece.
France and Germany put forward a proposal for the 400 minors to be shared around EU member states. “We want to show solidarity with Greece that lives up to European values,” said Emmanuel Macron, the French president. But so far there appears to be little appetite among EU member states to take in the newly homeless migrants.
The Netherlands and Austria have ruled out taking any of those affected, and their plight is threatening to create a new divide within the bloc.
Thousands were expected to sleep out in the open air for a third night, lying on the bare ground or pitching tents they had managed to salvage.
The government said it would take days to find them new accommodation.
“Our home burned, my shoes burned, we don’t have food, no water,” Valencia, an eight-year-old Congolese girl, told reporters.
Both she and her mother Natzy Malala, 30, who has a newborn infant, slept on the side of the road. “There is no food, no milk for the baby,” Ms
Malala said. In Germany, Angela Merkel, the chancellor, was facing a split within her government even as she sought to negotiate an EU solution.
Senior rebels broke ranks to demand Germany take unilateral action without waiting for its EU partners.
After big blazes on Tuesday and Wednesday nights destroyed about 90 per cent of the camp, a third fire broke out yesterday, burning what was left of the sprawling facility.