Greece: violent fire in a migrant camp after violence

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A fire destroyed part of an asylum seekers' camp on an island in the Aegean Sea on Saturday evening. The damage is significant.

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With our correspondent in Athens , Joël Bronner

The Vial camp on the island of Chios is one of the five overcrowded reception centers on the Greek Aegean islands, neighboring Turkey.

Greek authorities have announced that tents, containers and much of the camp's administrative services have been destroyed in the fire that broke out on Saturday.

Three people were also arrested in connection with the violence that erupted after the death, shortly before, in the camp, of a 47-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker, reports AFP.

Overcrowded camps

None of the centers on the Aegean islands are suited to the number of asylum seekers knocking on the door of Europe. Neither in Lesbos, where Moria, the largest camp on the continent, is located, nor in Samos, Kos, Levros or Chios, where the fire of this weekend broke out.

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In Chios precisely, there are nearly 5,000 crowding in a space provided for about 1,000 people. Across the five islands, there are no less than 36,000 asylum seekers. Six times more, on average, than the number of places available.

So in Lesbos, Samos, Chios, regularly, the flames attack the structures of places, which inhabitants and NGOs often describe as hell. On these three islands, Athens plans to set up a new camp soon, arousing hostility from the local population in recent months.

These camps, with miserable living conditions and hygiene, are the symbol of the limits of the European policy of "hotspots", these administrative centers which register asylum seekers and keep them there, often for months or years .

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• Greece
• International Migration
• Refugees

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