Children play outside the tents at a migrant and refugee camp where cases affected by the COVID-19 were detected, on the Greek mediterranean island of Lesbos
LESBOS ISLAND (Greece), June 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Inside Greece’s largest asylum-seeker camp on the island of Lesbos, the coronavirus is an oft-heard threat that has kept migrant facilities around the country under lockdown since March.
But knife crime is the real killer.
Whereas COVID-19 has yet to surface officially at the vastly overcrowded camp of Moria, five people have been murdered in knifings since the start of the year, including a woman and a young boy. Ten others have been injured.
Two of the attacks were carried out in the central square of the port capital of Mytilene.
Tension between Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazaras and Tajik are a frequent source of violence, says Nazifa, a teacher from that country.
“Yesterday, people came to our tent asking if we are Hazara or Tajik. We are neither, so both sides now consider us foes,” she said.
Originally imposed on March 18, the lockdown in island camps has been extended three times, most recently to June 21.
The Greek government had planned to relocate to the mainland over 2,300 asylum seekers from island camps – including many elderly and ailing persons – but the operation has been delayed by the pandemic.
The UN refugee agency had also urged last month that the exceptional measures be lifted “as soon as possible”.
The migration ministry has said that small groups of camp residents are allowed out at regular intervals to obtain supplies, under police supervision.
Dozens of Africans last month marched out of a hotel near the Peloponnese town of Kranidi to protest against a total lockdown imposed in April after over 150 people at the facility tested COVID-19 positive.
Authorities extended the Kranidi hotel lockdown to June 14 after three more cases were discovered in May.
More than 31,000 asylum seekers live in the five camps on the Aegean islands, with a total capacity of 6,095 people.
Nearly 17,000 live in Moria.
The migration ministry has recently stepped up asylum procedures, sorting through more than 6,000 requests in May.
Hundreds of refugees who have secured asylum have been queueing daily at the port of Mytilene, and over 500 have boarded ferries to Piraeus since last week, local news website StoNisi said. — NNN-AGENCIES