Greece resettling stranded migrants to tent camp on Lesbos

Authorities have already moved some 400 minors from Lesbos to the Greek mainland since the blaze for possible resettlement in other European countries but have refused to allow the majority to leave the island. COVID FEARS About 600 migrants have so far been resettled in the temporary tent camp and 14 of them have tested positive for COVID-19, a government official said. In the chaos following last week's fire, authorities lost sight of 35 people who had tested positive, deepening fears of an outbreak among migrants sleeping closely together without proper sanitation.

Greece has resettled hundreds of migrants in a temporary new tent facility after a fire destroyed their overcrowded refugee camp on the island of Lesbos and hopes to have moved all of them this week, government officials said on Monday. More than 12,000 people, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, Africa and Syria, are without shelter and are having to sleep out in the open without proper sanitation after the fire tore through the Moria migrant camp last Wednesday.

Greece is now registering the migrants and testing them for the COVID-19 disease before channeling them into the temporary tent camp, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said, though police said some were refusing to move to the facility. "We expect that in the next three to four days all (the migrants on Lesbos) will be housed...," Petsas told reporters.

Some 200 women and children staged a protest against being moved to the new camp and demanded to be taken off Lesbos. They chanted "No camp, freedom" and waved hand-written banners that read "We die every day a day forever". Authorities have already moved some 400 minors from Lesbos to the Greek mainland since the blaze for possible resettlement in other European countries but have refused to allow the majority to leave the island.

COVID FEARS About 600 migrants have so far been resettled in the temporary tent camp and 14 of them have tested positive for COVID-19, a government official said.

In the chaos following last week's fire, authorities lost sight of 35 people who had tested positive, deepening fears of an outbreak among migrants sleeping closely together without proper sanitation. Thousands of people still stuck on the streets or in makeshift shelters are struggling to cover their daily needs.

Women were seen cooking by the roadside, while one washed her child with a plastic water bottle. "People don't want to go back to the camp, maybe they want to go to other countries, and they want to complain to the Greek government and the other countries," said Abulfaz, a migrant from Afghanistan, who has lived in Moria for more than a year.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday that Greece would build a permanent new migrant reception centre to replace the Moria facility. Germany's Bild newspaper reported on Monday that Berlin is considering taking in thousands of refugees from Lesbos as a one-off gesture and also wants the Moria camp to be rebuilt and run by the European Union.

An investigation into the cause of the blaze is continuing, amid suspicions it was started deliberately by migrants seeking to force Greek authorities to allow them to leave the island.