Thousands of asylum-seekers spend a fourth night sleeping in the open on the Greek island of Lesbos, after successive fires destroyed the notoriously overcrowded Moria camp during a coronavirus lockdown.
A migrant holds her baby as she runs to avoid a small fire in a field near Mytilene town, on the northeastern island of Lesbos, Greece, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020. Thousands of asylum-seekers spent a fourth night sleeping in the open on the Greek island of Lesbos, after successive fires destroyed the notoriously overcrowded Moria camp during a coronavirus lockdown.
Thousands gathered for a protest demanding to be allowed to leave the island, gathering on a road blocked by police buses. The demonstration was loud but peaceful, with mainly children and women at the front. Riot police observed nearby as protesters chanted slogans and held up improvised banners made of pieces of cardboard or sheets.
On Friday, 200,000 rapid-detection kits for the virus were flown to the island for an extensive testing drive that would include asylum-seekers and islanders. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country has so far not offered to take in children from Moria, underlined his long-time hard line on migration in a video posted on Facebook Saturday.
Moria’s overcrowded squalor created tension both among the camp’s inhabitants and with locals, whose initially generally welcoming attitude during the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015 has waned over the years.Human Rights Watch said the Moria fires “highlight the failure of the European Union’s ‘hotspot approach’ ... which has led to the containment of thousands of people on the Greek islands.
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