Thousands flee a burning quarantine migrant camp in Greece



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Approximately 12.5 thousand people lived in and around the Moria camp in unsanitary conditions. people, although the camp was adapted to house less than 2.8 thousand. persons. After a Somali resident of the camp tested COVID-19, additional restrictions were imposed on the camp last week.

“The fire spread through the countryside and its surroundings and destroyed it … The police are monitoring more than 12,000 people on a road, migrants,” Stratos Kytelis, mayor of Mytilene, the island’s main city, told the radio. private Skai.

“The situation is very difficult, because there will be people among the people outside the camp [koronavirusu]”He added.”

The fires broke out last night, authorities said. The cause of the fires and the full extent of the damage are still unclear.

Authorities did not confirm local media reports that the fires were intentionally set in protest of the quarantine measures, but said firefighters faced resistance from some residents of the camp.

Health officials said on Tuesday that the coronavirus had been confirmed in 35 people in large-scale tests at Greece’s largest migrant camp. They were kept in isolation in a separate location that was not affected by the fires.

Early Wednesday morning, riot police were deployed on the road between the camp and Mytilene, 5 km to the south.

Almost the entire Moria camp and the olive grove outside its walls, where many asylum seekers slept in tents, were on fire, an AFP correspondent reported.

In the event of a fire, the migrants ran towards the port city of Mytilene, but were blocked by police cars.

Refugee support group Stand by Me Lesvos said on Twitter that it had received reports that local Greeks had prevented migrants from going to a nearby town.

Firefighters in the west of the island of Lesbo also extinguished two wildfires on Wednesday.

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