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Thousands of people spent the night in the streets surrounding the Moria camp. Chancellor Schallenberg calls for the general concept of the EU Commission: “Shouting for distribution cannot be the solution.” The migration researcher speaks of a “best-announced catastrophe.”
08.06 am, September 10, 2020
The first measures to accommodate people have started after the fires in the Moria refugee camp. 165 unaccompanied minors they were flown aboard a plane from Lesbos to the Greek port city of Thessaloniki. Another 240 minors should follow Thursdayreported the state broadcaster (ERT).
The fire department was Thursday night. several minor new fires Clear. According to an AFP photographer, the flames burned in a part of the camp that was only slightly affected by the previous fire. Chaos returned: the refugees ran out of the camp as their tents burned. The fires destroyed the remaining intact tents and other makeshift accommodations in Moria, state television reported.
Thousands of people spent the first night after the great fire in the streets around the Moria camp. Police used tear gas to detain some young migrants who tried to reach the island’s capital, state television reported. Some migrants had previously attacked the police with stones.
Fear of crown bud
Meanwhile, Athens wants to carry out 19,000 crown tests on Lesbos in the coming days, the government spokesman said. The fear of an uncontrollable virus outbreak is great: 35 migrants had tested positive for the virus. You hid in the aftermath of the fire and you could infect thousands of people. The government said police were only able to arrest eight of them.
A ferry, the “Blue Star Chios”, was expected in a port in the west of the island on Thursday morning. This ship is supposed to accommodate around 1,000 migrants. Other migrants are expected to be picked up by two Greek navy ships in the coming days.
Schallenberg offers help: “Tents and blankets”
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) has the attitude of the turquoise green federal government, No help in searching for people from the burned-out Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos in Austria, highlighted on Wednesday evening in ORF-ZiB 2. Austria offers “help on the spot”, he said, for example when there is a “need for tents and blankets”.
“The cry for distribution cannot be the solution”Schallenberg said. The EU must not fall back into the “old debate” and talk about the distribution of refugees. Especially since in his conversations with representatives of the Greek government this was not requested. He also has one million euros of aid from the external disaster fund Offered.
The Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea is a symbol of the failure of the European asylum policy. Now she was a victim of the flames.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
Originally, Moria was one of the five “hotspots” that were established in Greece after the refugee crisis to intern people caught at the crossing from Turkey. But it has been completely overcrowded for years.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
The camp has a capacity for some 2,800 people, but more than 12,700 asylum seekers live there in the most difficult conditions.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
In addition to the humanitarian emergency, the crisis in the crown also came this year. After the first corona case was discovered, the warehouse was quarantined in early September.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
The Greek Conservative government has so far refrained from a complete shutdown and evacuation of the camp.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
Moria was created in October 2015. Initially, asylum seekers only registered there and then moved to mainland Greece after a short period of stay. This changed with the EU-Turkey refugee agreement in spring 2016.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
In mid-September 2016, much of the camp facilities were destroyed in a fire and two people were killed in another fire in late September. In November 2016, there were clashes between the camp inmates and the security forces, two people were killed in a gas explosion.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
In February 2020, 2,000 refugees marched to the port of the island’s capital, Myrtilini, to protest against living conditions in the camp.
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
(c) AP (Panagiotis Balaskas)
With the discussion about the admission of refugees, one only supports the smugglers’ businessSchallenberg argued. “If we clean up Moria’s camp, it will be full again,” he said. If you send signals that there is hope of reaching Europe, thousands of refugees will soon be back at the borders. For example on the playing field. “That would set off a chain reaction and we would no longer be in control of the situation.”. Schallenberg rejected the question of whether this attitude in immigration policy was not cynical. “It is a matter of common sense”.
Schallenberg was not impressed by the fact that even conservative politicians in Germany or Norway are in favor of accepting some of the 13,000 refugees from Moria. “That is a minority opinion.” The EU Commission must now present a general concept, said the Foreign Minister. Unfortunately, until now there has been no “uniform policy in the field of asylum and migration” within the European Union. Improvement is needed in this regard, also in the areas of “trade policy and development cooperation”.
Migration researcher on Moria: “Well announced disaster”
Migrationsforscher Gerald Knaus has called the fire disaster in the Greek refugee camp of Moria the “best-heralded disaster” in Europe. It was “clear” that the “pressure” of quarantine “sooner or later would lead to such an outbreak”he told the ORF Wednesday night “ZiB Night.”
As an immediate emergency measure, Knaus suggested that European countries accept refugees from mainland Greece who had already been recognized to free their homes for the thousands of people in Moria who had been made homeless. If Germany and some other countries welcomed around 5,000 people each, it would be “a signal for Greece: Greece is not alone.” Then Athens could “immediately begin to accommodate the people.”
The Austrian migration researcher living in Berlin criticized the political attitude according to which “men, women and children (in refugee camps, note) must be held forever” to avoid an increase in the influx of refugees, a so-called effect of attraction. “This is, cynically speaking, a Guantánamo for refugees“They are being held there indefinitely,” he said, referring to the US prison camp in Cuba. Knaus is confident that the procedure he proposed will not have a pull effect.
