A migrant woman walks among tents at a makeshift camp for refugees and migrants next to the Moria camp on Lesbos. Photo: Reuters
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https://scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3025401/hundreds-migrants-moved-hell-overcrowded-greek-island Europe
Hundreds of migrants moved from ‘hell’ of overcrowded Greek island
- The island of Lesbos has been sheltering nearly 11,000 people – four times its capacity – with almost 100 more arriving every day from Turkey
Refugees and migrants wait to be transferred from overcrowded Lesbos to mainland Greece on Monday. Photo: EPA
Greek officials and UN workers began evacuating hundreds of migrants from the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday, where overcrowding and the crushing heat have made conditions unbearable.
The first group of 635 Afghans at the Moria camp were transferred early on Monday towards the north of Greece, scrambling into police buses under the supervision of UN refugee agency workers.
“I hope to get out of this hell quickly,” said 21-year-old Mohamed Akberi, who arrived at the camp five days earlier.
The migrants were taken onto a ship, the Caldera Vista, bound for the port of Thessaloniki on mainland Greece.
Another 700 migrants are expected to be transferred later on Monday, under a decision taken by the Greek government at an emergency meeting on Saturday.
Refugees and migrants wait to board a ship at the port of Mytilene on Lesbos. Photo: AFP
The government agreed on the emergency transfer of the migrants, prioritising unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable people.
But they also agreed to do away with the appeal procedures for asylum seekers to facilitate their swift return to Turkey.
Greece will also step up border patrols with the help of the EU border control agency Frontex. Police boats could be seen patrolling regularly off the coast of the island.
There has been growing tension between the two countries over the steady flow of migrants arriving on the Greek islands in the Aegean, which lie just off the Turkish coast.
After the EU signed an agreement with Turkey in March 2016, tighter checks made access to the Greek islands from Turkey more difficult.
But in recent months, nearly 100 people on average have managed to make the crossing every day.
Children from Afghanistan wait to board a catamaran that will transfer them to the mainland from Lesbos. Photo: Reuters
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that the island of Lesbos was sheltering nearly 11,000 people at the end of August – four times its capacity.
In August alone, more than 3,000 people had arrived there, said the agency.
And last Thursday, 13 boats carrying 540 people, 240 of them children, arrived at the island – an unprecedented surge in arrivals that has alarmed the relatively new conservative government.
Fahimeh Nourmohammadi said she, her husband and two sons had fled Iran to escape religious radicals there.
On Lesbos for the past three weeks, she did not feel safe, she said. “A few days ago a young adolescent was stabbed in the camp,” she said.
She wants to get her children, 12 and 16, back in school, she added. “At Moria, my children don’t go to school, they are bored and at night they are scared.”
“We came all this way so they could have a future, so they could live in a democracy, and not for them to be in an unsanitary camp,” she added.
Migrants at the Moria camp have complained that the conditions are substandard and that there are no tents for new arrivals.
In Brussels, the EU’s migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the commission was ready to help Greece in any way it could with the transfers. The EU remains committed to its 2016 agreement with Turkey and is ready to keep working with Ankara, he added.