MORIA (Greece), Oct 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least two migrants died on
Sunday in a fire at a Greek island refugee camp, with the blaze triggering
rioting by angry residents.
Athens News Agency, quoting police sources, reported that a woman and a
child had died in the blaze at the overcrowded Moria camp on the island of
Lesbos.
The body of the woman was taken to the island’s general hospital while the
body of the child was handed over to authorities by migrants.
The fire inside the camp was extinguished by plane. But police later fired
tear gas to control an angry crowd who said authorities took too long to
respond to the incident.
In a statement, police said the riots occurred after two separate fires
broke out, firstly outside and then inside Moria camp with a time gap of
twenty minutes.
Additional officers were sent from Athens in C-130 army planes in a bid to
contain the situation, although local police sources said calm had returned
to the camp by 2300 GMT.
Moria camp hosts around 13,000 people but has facilities for just 3,000.
It has become like a small town with UN refugee agency tents for around
8,000 people sprawling into the olive fields of nearby Moria village. Others
are housed in containers.
Greece is hosting some 70,000 mostly Syrian refugees and migrants who have fled their countries since 2015, and crossed over from neighbouring Turkey.
The Greek government said on Sunday it planned to discuss a new asylum
draft law to deal with the fresh migrant crisis.
“In the cabinet meeting on Monday, we are going to discuss a draft law
proposed by the Citizen’s Protection Ministry which will update, in
accordance with European standards, the asylum procedure”, Minister of State, George Gerapetritis said in an interview with Skai Tv on Sunday. — NNN-AGENCIES