Lesbos refugee camp fire: “Moria is over”

WITHTwo days after the refugee camp in Moria, on the Greek island of Lesbos, caught fire, the flames continue to burn. After the great fire on Sunday night, plumes of smoke rose again from inside the camp, first on Tuesday night and then on Thursday at lunchtime. It seems that Moria’s arsonists, whoever they were, were determined to make the camp completely uninhabitable.

“It’s a disaster right now,” said Tommy Olsen, founder of Aegean Boat Report, a Norwegian non-governmental organization that monitors the arrival of refugee ships and rejections in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece. “We have not seen anything of this magnitude in previous fires.”

Thousands of asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan, as well as from Arab and African countries, drag their belongings through the streets in the scorching sun and protest that they have not been provided with food or clean water. They report that the police ordered the shop owners not to let them enter. The authorities did not distribute water and food until Thursday afternoon.

Then the refugees, walking slowly on the hot asphalt, are stopped completely by riot police, who had been stationed a few kilometers from the camp. As they get stuck, people seek shelter from the dazzling sunlight in the scant shade of trucks, police cars, or pieces of cardboard boxes and bear the situation patiently.

“It will never function as a warehouse again”

At the camp, Eman, a 24-year-old Afghan, met other men from Afghanistan at the first police cordon. Officers wear heavy protective gear. “Moria is finished,” he believes, “it will never function as a warehouse again.”

Inside the camp, you can see some refugees among the tents and charred roads as fire trucks and helicopters fly overhead. In many places the only remains of the tents are the burned poles.

“There have been so many robberies and robberies in Moria, there is no way we will go back there,” says Yussef, a 22-year-old Syrian. He had spent eight months in the country jail for not renewing his residence permit on time. Consider that the fear of Covid-19 is exaggerated. “We have no problem living in apartments in the city, but never again in Moria.”

His friend, also a Syrian, speaks Arabic, but describes his residence permit as “identification,” suggesting that he spent time in Germany before ending up in Moria.

But many of the residents no longer want to see people like Yussef on their island and express their frustration with growing protests. These peaked in February when residents opposed the Athens riot police to prevent permanent camps from being established on Lesbos.

Currently, the island is caught between the policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose attempt to open his country’s westernmost border with the EU to masses of asylum seekers, was thwarted in March, and an EU that is unsure. how to deal with your refugee policy. must continue.

Now the Greek government hurries

This uncertainty has sometimes been expressed in tacit consent, for example when Brussels did not publicly reprimand the Greek government for its policy of reducing the number of asylum seekers by speeding up and rejecting asylum procedures. Athens also allowed ships with people to return to the open sea.

Now, after this humanitarian disaster in Moria, the Greek government is rushing to provide shelter for military and civilian ships and thousands of tents.

“So we have an emergency here now and for the next few months, and they are calling the riot police because they know it will not go well,” said Olsen, founder of Aegean Boat Report. “The refugees will not stay where they are, and neither will the residents. Last night vigilante groups and fascist groups roamed the city and intimidated volunteers with identity checks. “

Notis Mitarakis, the controversial Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum, said: “We have two fronts here at the moment. Those of migrants who are blackmailed into being allowed to leave the port city of Mytilene, and unfortunately also those of local authorities who lack the necessary sense of responsibility in difficult times. “

Local residents put bulldozers on the road

On the outskirts of Moria, residents got in the way of military bulldozers on Thursday, which are supposed to start rebuilding the camp. For miles on either side of the camp, ragged families drag the few things they could save from the flames or just sit on the side of the road. Inside the camp, looters have taken everything that can be taken from the tents and tents.

“We don’t know who started the fire, but right after them came thieves who stole our refrigerator, clothes and supplies,” says Ali, a 19-year-old Afghan who had worked illegally in Iran for four years earlier. came to Greece while inspecting the remains of his looted shop.

With no operational warehouse in Moria for the foreseeable future, tensions are likely to remain high until a permanent solution is found.

“Moria is not there to accommodate people, he is there to get rid of them,” said Dimitris Tsirkas, a Greek journalist. And to call those who hope for a European Eden: Forget it, there is no paradise for you. Only hell. And if you’ve managed to escape hell, we have a worse one for you. Until you go away again. Better yet, don’t even come here. “