MYTILENE, Greece: Thousands of refugees and migrants have spent a third night in the open on the Greek island of Lesbos after two successive nights of fires in the notoriously overcrowded Moria camp left them homeless.
Some awoke Friday after sleeping by the side of the road, having cut down reeds and used salvaged blankets to make rudimentary shelters to protect them from the night-time chill and the scorching day-time sun. Others used tents or had just sleeping bags to protect them from the elements.
Greek authorities have said the fires on Tuesday and Wednesday evening were deliberately set by some of the camp’s residents angered by isolation orders issued to prevent the spread of the coronavirus after 35 residents were found to have been infected.
The camp had already been placed in lockdown until mid-September, after the first case had been detected — a Somali man who had been granted asylum and had left the camp, but who had returned to Moria from Athens.
Aid organizations have long warned about the dire conditions in the camp, which has a capacity of just over 2,750 people but was housing more than 12,500 inside and in a spillover tent city that sprang up in an adjacent olive grove.
The situation has led to spiraling tension, both among migrants and refugees inside the camp and with local residents who have long called for Moria to be shut down.
Tuesday night’s fire left around 3,500 of the camp’s inhabitants homeless, the migration minister had said. Tents were flown in and a ferry and two navy ships were to provide emergency accommodation. But the remnants of the camp were burned down on Wednesday night, leaving the remaining inhabitants with nowhere to stay.
On Wednesday, government spokesman Stelios Petsas stressed that none of the camp’s residents, except for 406 unaccompanied teenagers and children who had been living there, would be allowed to leave the island. The unaccompanied minors were flown to the mainland and temporarily housed in hotels on Wednesday night.
“Some people do not respect the country that is hosting them, and they strive to prove they are not looking for a passport to a better life,” Petsas said, stressing the fires had been deliberately set and had left thousands of families homeless.
Moria houses people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who arrived on the island from the nearby Turkish coast fleeing poverty or conflict in their homeland. Under a 2016 deal between the European Union and Turkey, those arriving on Greek islands would remain there pending either their successful asylum application, or deportation back to Turkey.
But a backlog in asylum applications, combined with continued arrivals and few deportations, led to massive overcrowding in Moria and other camps on eastern Aegean islands.
Thousands sleep in open after Greek refugee camp burns down
https://arab.news/j693y
Thousands sleep in open after Greek refugee camp burns down
- Some used blankets to make rudimentary shelters
- Greek authorities have said the fires were deliberately set by some of the camp’s residents
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
