Covid-19 in Greece: demonstration of asylum seekers in front of the Moria camp

Text by: Joël Bronner Follow

In Greece, dozens of asylum seekers - mostly from African countries - organized a demonstration on Wednesday outside the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos. A protest movement motivated in particular by the risks of exposure to Covid-19. In the unhealthy and overcrowded space of the largest camp in Europe, neither proper hygiene nor social distancing are in fact applicable by a population, confined since mid-March and who also feels largely abandoned.

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From our correspondent in Athens,

"We are not safe in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic", these are the types of messages brandished by demonstrators outside the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. Faced with health risks, these asylum seekers would like to be "released", as they write, and transferred to the mainland of Greece.

Prior to this event, the Greek government also announced the gradual delivery of almost 2,300 people to the continent over the next two weeks. In Moria, in the middle of olive groves, nearly 19,000 people are piling up for the time in and around a space planned to house only 3,000.

In a just-released statement, the NGO Human Rights Watch fears it "  a public health crisis  " in the face of living conditions deemed "  unimaginable  " in the five saturated camps in the Aegean islands. Camps where washing your hands regularly is especially quite impossible.

Proof of the progression of the virus among these populations often grouped in small spaces, some 150 asylum seekers were tested positive this week, in a hotel in the Peloponnese region, in the south of the country.

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• Coronavirus
• Greece
• International Migration

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