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Hundreds of migrants moved from ‘hell’ of overcrowded Greek island
MORIA, Greece, Sept 2, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Greek officials and UN workers
began evacuating hundreds of migrants from the Greek island of Lesbos Monday,
where overcrowding and the crushing heat have made conditions unbearable.
A first group of 635 Afghans at the Moria camp were transferred early
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,” 21-year-old Mohamed Akberi, who
arrived at the camp five days earlier, told AFP. The migrants were taken onto
a ship, the Caldera Vista, bound for the port of Thessaloniki on mainland
Greece.
Another 700 migrants are due to be transferred later Monday, under a
decision taken by the Greek government at an emergency meeting Saturday.
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. AFP journalists could see regular Greek police boat
patrols off 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 a hundred people on average have managed to
make the crossing every day.
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 the children,
arrived at the island — an unprecedented surge in arrivals that has alarmed
the relatively new conservative government.
Migrants at the Moria camp have complained that the hygiene conditions are
sub-standard and that there are no tents for the new arrivals.
BSS/AFP/RY/1710 hrs