The destroyed Moria camp in Lesbos.
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Panagiotis Balaskas / AP / SIPA
Ten European Union countries will welcome some 400 unaccompanied migrant minors, evacuated from the Greek island of Lesvos after the gigantic fire in the refugee camp of Moria, the German Minister of the Interior announced on Friday. Horst Seehofer.
"Our contacts with member countries of the European Union have led to 10 member countries participating in the transfer" of these 400 minors, he said in Berlin, specifying that Germany and France would take each supports 100 to 150 of these children.
These 400 minors and unaccompanied minors have already been transferred to mainland Greece after the fire that devastated the unsanitary and overcrowded camp, and left the more than 12,000 people who lived there in the greatest poverty.
"We are in discussions with other countries" of the EU which can accommodate these children, said Horst Seehofer during a press conference with the European Commissioner for Migration, Margaritis Schinas, who participated by video from Athens.
"A severe reminder"
The Netherlands had proposed Thursday to take care of a hundred migrants, half of them minors.
"Moria is a stern reminder to all members (of the European Union) of what we need to change in Europe," said Margaritis Schinas, who was then due to meet with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“We need solidarity in the EU's migration policy,” he added.
The Moria tragedy has reignited the debate on the reception of asylum seekers in Europe, over which EU countries are tearing themselves apart.
The European Commission is due to present at the end of the month a long-awaited, and several times rejected, proposal for a new Pact on migration and asylum.
World
Emergency aid is organized after the fires in the Lesbos camp
World
The main migrant camp on the island of Lesvos almost completely destroyed by fire
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Migrants
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