Fire in the Moria refugee camp: a tragedy foretold

• Fire: A huge fire destroys the Moria refugee camp

• Migration and Asylum Pact: Humanitarian visas to avoid more deaths in the Mediterranean

It was the consummation of an announced tragedy.

after fire destroyed 80% of the Moria camp for displaced people on the Greek island of Lesbos on Wednesday.

Several fires broke out overnight in the compound, which houses 13,000 people and is the largest refugee camp in the country.

The Greek Government has called an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers to analyze the facts.

He

also

for the next four months, announced urgent measures for the re-housing of the migrants, who will be housed in tents and military boats, and sent police reinforcements to maintain order on the island.

The causes of the fire were not yet totally clear at the time of this edition and several versions of what happened were circulating.

The German news agency DPA reported that some residents of the camp indicated that residents of Lesbos had started the fires, while other versions attributed the responsibility to the migrants and refugees themselves and indicated that they threw stones at the firefighters who came to calm the flames .

The Greek news agency ANA-MPA assured, for its part, that the events were precipitated as a result of the announcement that

, so they had to isolate themselves with their families and close contacts on the outskirts of Moria.

Faced with forced isolation, some people tried to leave the field during the early morning hours.

The fires would have originated amid the tensions.

The Greek Minister of Migration,

,

this latest version in a press conference in the afternoon from the island.

"Numerous fires have been declared in the field during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. The incidents occurred when the asylum seekers protested against the quarantine" imposed after the detection of 35 positives.

There are no fatalities to mourn and no serious injuries, according to authorities.

"Scenes of panic"

"Right now we are not able to give an answer to how the fire started. We are focused on the situation of immense vulnerability that has been created for the displaced from Moria, a camp where approximately 13,000 people already lived in inhumane conditions - of which , 6,000 are minors-, in a place adapted to shelter only 3,000 and where safety and hygiene conditions were not assured ", says

.

"The fire has destroyed practically everything: tents, barracks, medical centers of other organizations ... There have been scenes of real panic, with families fleeing the danger zone," adds the psychologist.

The field of Moria has suffered several fires since the beginning of the summer, until reaching the tragic outcome of this Wednesday.

"Tonight there has been an immense wind that has spread the fire very quickly, destroying everything," he explains.

"Not one but many fires have occurred in the countryside. The migrants threw stones at the firefighters who tried to quell the fires. The causes are being investigated,"

North Aegean

, told television ERT.

"The camp has been evacuated. All these people are now on the national highway that goes to Mytilene," Panagiotis Deligiannis, a witness to the incident, told Reuters.

Mytilene, the capital of the island, is located seven kilometers from Moria.

"The police do not let them advance. These people are sleeping on the left and right of the road, in the fields," he adds.

The Greek government is seeking the urgent relocation of between 3,000 and 4,000 people who, according to the authorities, have been left homeless.

The facilities that house the

that Moria housed have been totally destroyed, prompting the immediate announcement by the European Commission that the EU will finance the urgent transfer of these children to the Greek peninsula and will take care of your accommodation.

The reaction of the European Union

The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has expressed his "full solidarity"

, while the President of the Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, lamented the tragedy and announced an imminent trip to Greece this Thursday by the Commissioner for Migration, Margaritis Schinas, to deal with what happened.

In conversation with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Schinas has guaranteed him the help of Brussels "at all levels during these difficult times".

The European Commission is preparing to present, on September 30, a new proposal of the New Pact for Migration and Asylum that undertakes reforms that help overcome obsolescence such as the Dublin Agreement and distribute the migratory flow proportionally among the 27 of so that the countries of the South do not carry all the weight as is the case today.

It so happens that just a week and a half after the pandemic was decreed,

to their precarious conditions and urged Brussels to give a "response immediate "in the event of an emergency.

And a week after making that appeal, he urged the European Commission to give new impetus to the Migration and Asylum Pact.

Humanitarian organizations made similar appeals.

Meanwhile, Oxfam Intermón and the Greek Council for Refugees (CGR) have requested this Wednesday an investigation into the responsibilities of the European Union after the fires in Moria and its role in the protection of refugees.

"This totally avoidable tragedy should trigger a radical change in the response of the EU and Greece to the arrival in Europe of asylum seekers, which has clearly failed," said

, head of the CGR, in a statement to the that EL MUNDO has had access.

"The humanitarian tragedy that has led to this devastating fire is the consequence of years of a misguided response by the EU and its Member States to the arrival of people fleeing conflict and persecution," said

, responsible for the Oxfam's migration campaign in Europe.

Amnesty International, Save the Children, Unicef, MSF and other organizations called for a change in European migration policy and the transfer of migrants from the Aegean islands to the mainland.

Suicide attempts

International humanitarian organizations have been denouncing the terrible situation in Moria for years.

.

"We were not surprised. We had been warning of the unsustainable situation of the refugee camp for months. It is a population that has suffered very severe movement restrictions since the start of the pandemic. About a week ago, the first positive case of Covid-19 occurred. inside the field, which caused the measure of a massive quarantine, "says López Alba.

In

, it is impossible to establish social distancing measures and guarantee hygiene.

Thus, this week a total of 35 more cases of coronavirus have been counted in Moria, people who after the early morning fire are untraceable.

The tragedy "may add more risk of spread and increase the vulnerability of the refugees," warns the MSF specialist.

"The environment in Moria before the fires was already one of humanitarian crisis. During the months of June and July we had a very alarming situation, in which we attended an average of two emergency interventions in the field of mental health. But during In August we have gone to an average of two interventions of this type a day. These are panic attacks, dissociative disorders, self-harm, suicide attempts and numerous cases of sexual violence ", states López Alba, describing a situation that was already very critical before of the destruction of Moria.

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