Greek officials and aid workers on Monday began an emergency operation to evacuate 1,400 migrants from a dangerously overcrowded camp on Lesbos as numbers of arrivals on the island continue to climb.
Six hundred and forty people were bussed away from Moria camp, which has become notorious for violence and poor hygiene, with 800 more following.
“I hope to get out of this hell quickly,” 21-year-old Mohamed Akberi, who arrived at the camp five days earlier, told Agence-France Presse.
Lesbos has been hit hard by the migrant crisis, with authorities deadlocked over what to do with new arrivals. Some 11,000 have been put in Moria camp, an old army barracks in a remote part of the island which has a capacity of around 3,000.
The camp has been criticised sharply by human rights organisations for its squalid living conditions and poor security. Last month, a 14-year-old Afghan boy was killed in a fight and women in the camp are targets for sexual violence.
The migrants removed from Moria on Monday will be taken by ferry to Thessaloniki, where they will be transported to Nea Kavala, a small camp in northern Greece near the border with North Macedonia.
Lesbos saw 3,000 new arrivals in August, with around 650 arriving in just one day last week, and another 400 over the weekend.
The emergency transfer from Moria was agreed by the government at an emergency meeting on Saturday, with unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable people given priority.
The Greek government agreed to do away with the appeal procedures for asylum seekers to facilitate their swift return to Turkey.
Greece will also step up border patrols with the help of the EU border control agency Frontex.
Nearly 1,900 migrants have been forcibly returned to Turkey under a deal brokered by the European Union in 2016, and 17,000 migrants have voluntarily left Greece for their home countries over the last three years.
Aid workers have questioned whether the emergency move provides a meaningful solution to Greece’s migrant problem.
“While the situation in Moria is certainly diabolical, the government's response to move people doesn't solve the problem of overcrowding and is more of a PR exercise without addressing the issues that will be exacerbated by the move,” one aid worker with Nea Kavala, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Telegraph. “It's very much an out-of-the-frying-pan-into- the-fire situation.”
Stella Nanou, a spokesperson at the UNHCR in Greece, told the Daily Telegraph: “The situation is an urgent one in Moria and requires urgent relief. It is obvious more needs to be done in the short term. In the long term, solutions need to be provided to decongest and relieve the situation on the islands. We stand ready to help.”
Source: telegraph
