Greek police arrest 5 refugees over fire at camp

Police in Greece have arrested five refugees over a fire that raged through a refugee camp on Lesbos Island last week.

On Tuesday, Greek Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisohoidis said that five suspects had been detained over the fire in the Moria camp, adding that authorities were searching for one more suspect.

The fire broke out at the overcrowded camp just after midnight last Tuesday, forcing more than 12,000 people, mostly refugees from Afghanistan, Africa, and Syria, to flee the camp, which was on lockdown over coronavirus concerns. By early morning on Wednesday, most of Moria had been reduced to a smoldering, mangled mass of burnt containers and tents.

The blaze left desperate refugees with no shelter, proper sanitation, or access to food and water. The displaced people, including children, are still without shelter a week after the incident.

According to Greek authorities, the fire was intentionally lit by some camp occupants after the quarantine measures were imposed. The measures were taken after a number of individuals at the site were diagnosed with COVID-19.

Greek officials are still struggling to persuade reluctant refugees to move to a new temporary shelter. The displaced hope to be allowed to leave the island permanently, fearing that life in a new camp would be no better than in Moria.

Apart from a few hundred refugees — mostly unaccompanied minors — who have been moved off the island, there will be no mass transfers, and all other asylum seekers will have to go into the new shelter.

“The big concern is that even though many thousands of places are available and will continue to be expanded, there are still less than 1,000 that have been occupied,” said Luciano Calestini, the head of the Greece office of the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday also reiterated his call for help from the European Union (EU), which has struggled to find a unified approach to the refugee crisis at its borders.

Mitsotakis said it was time for “tangible solidarity” from the bloc.

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