EU finances transfer of 400 unaccompanied minors after fire in Greek refugee camp

The EU has agreed to finance the transfer of 400 unaccompanied minors after a fire in Greece’s refugee camp.

The EU’s Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johannson made the announcement after the majority of the Moria facility burned to the ground in overnight fires.

“My thoughts and sympathies are with the people of Lesbos and in particular the migrants ands staff working,” Johannson said. “The safety and shelter of all people in Moria is the priority,” she added

Thousands of migrants fled fires that tore through the overcrowded Moria camp under coronavirus lockdown on the Greek island of Lesbos. No casualties have been reported so far.

A migration ministry official said the Moria camp, which hosts over 12,000 people, was “probably totally destroyed” and that the government was struggling to find alternative shelter for the migrants who were gathered on streets outside the camp.

The cause of the fires is not yet known but authorities are investigating whether they were deliberately started. Athens put Lesbos under a state of emergency and sent police reinforcements to the island, which lies just off Turkey, to help keep order.

The fire broke out just after midnight and by dawn most of the camp was a smoldering mass of burnt containers and tents, with a few people searching through the debris for their possessions.

The whereabouts of 35 migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 this week were unknown, raising concerns that they might spread the virus on the island.

“There was not just one but many fires in the camp. Migrants threw stones at firefighters trying to put out the fires. The cause is under investigation,” Constantine Theophilopoulos, fire brigade chief for the northern Aegean, told ERT TV.

The camp was placed under quarantine last week after an asylum-seeker tested positive. Authorities had confirmed 35 infections as of Monday evening.

Initial reports suggested the fires broke out at different locations in the sprawling camp after authorities tried to isolate some individuals who had tested positive for COVID-19.

“The camp has been evacuated. All these people are on the national road toward (the town of) Mytilini,” said Panagiotis Deligiannis, a witness from Moria.