Since the Moria camp went up in smoke, asylum seekers have been on the streets.

Faced with the protests, the Greek government decided to speed up reconstruction and promised, Sunday September 13, that a new camp will be set up in the next five days, namely September 18. 

"In five days, the operation will be completed. Everyone will be installed in the new camp", assured the Greek Minister of Migration, Notis Mitarachi, visiting Lesvos for two days to coordinate the work.

Like the old camp, the new one should accommodate 12,000 places. 

The authorities have indicated that they will impose restrictions on the exits of migrants from this camp, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Notis Mitarachi estimated that “200 people” among the asylum seekers could be infected with the new coronavirus.

He nevertheless stressed that the camp would only be closed "twelve hours" and that the migrants could go out the rest of the day.

Minister in charge of migration Notis Mitarachi announces that the new camp is ready to welcome asylum seekers.

Its capacity will reach 12,000 places in the coming days.

"We hope that they will come voluntarily," replied the Minister.

pic.twitter.com/IHvWxbKlCG

- Alexandros Kottis (@alexandros_kts) September 13, 2020

State of emergency in Lesbos 

Since the fires of Tuesday and Wednesday that destroyed the registration and identification center in Moria, without causing any victims, a state of emergency has been declared in Lesbos.

Thousands of families sleep on the asphalt, on the sidewalks or in the fields. 

The Moria camp was set up in 2015 to limit the number of migrants from neighboring Turkey to Europe.

More than 12,000 people lived there, including 4,000 children.

In recent years, the lack of hygiene and overcrowding in Moria camp have been criticized by refugee rights NGOs, which regularly call on the Greek authorities to transfer the most vulnerable asylum seekers to the mainland.

The fear of "a prison" 

However, the construction of a new camp leaves migrants skeptical.

Hundreds of asylum seekers refuse to be registered and to enter, saying they are fed up, after waiting in Moria for months, some years, to be transferred to structures in Mainland Greece.

On Saturday and Sunday, asylum seekers demonstrated holding placards proclaiming "Freedom!"

or "We want to leave Moria".

Protesters threw stones at the police, who responded with tear gas.

Many migrants are also afraid of being confined again because of the coronavirus epidemic and none want to relive what they experienced in Moria: lack of hygiene, violence and almost daily fights between different ethnic groups.

Migrant camps across Greece, including that of Moria, have been confined since mid-March because of the Covid-19.

Many NGOs and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have deemed the confinement measures in the camps "discriminatory" and "excessive", which the Greek government deconfined the country in early May.

With AFP

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