Moria refugee camp

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Road along the Moria refugee camp (2017)
Notice board on Lesbos for refugees (2017)

The Greek refugee camp Moria ( Greek προσφυγικό κέντρο Μόριας prosfygikó kéndro Mórias ) was located in the interior of the East Aegean island of Lesbos near the village of Moria in the municipality of Mytilini. The camp, which was designed for 2,800 people, temporarily lived 20,000 people (March 2020); it was Europe's largest refugee camp and a so-called EU hotspot. Conditions in the camp were catastrophic for years because of the overcrowding. At the beginning of September 2020 there was a major fire that almost completely destroyed the camp and the refugees' belongings. Six alleged arsonists were arrested on September 15. The warehouse was cleared from mid-September 2020.

Registration and reception center

On September 25, 2013, a camp was opened at Moria as a screening center and detention center with space for 98 people. The maximum length of stay in the camp was designed for 30 days. Right next to it, a larger initial reception center was built in 2014 on the former site of the Greek military . 75 percent of the costs were borne by the European Union , 25 percent came from the Greek state. Construction work was completed at the end of 2014. The new warehouse was scheduled to start operating in January 2015.

As a result of the refugee crisis in 2015 , the camp designed for 410 people was soon overcrowded. In response, the camp's capacities were expanded.

EU hotspot warehouse

The camp was designated by the European Union (EU) as a registration and reception center for the initial registration of refugees and for the implementation of asylum procedures and on October 8, 2015 it was declared a “hotspot”. The EU supported the registration and implementation of asylum procedures through Frontex and the European Asylum Support Office for short, EASO. The management of the camp, which is now designed for 2,800 people, was the responsibility of the Greek police together with the UNHCR . In addition to the Moria refugee camp, there are two other refugee camps on the island, the Kara Tepe camp directly on the coast, especially for families, and the PIKPA camp for unaccompanied minor refugees . There are other refugee camps on the neighboring islands.

Fatal humanitarian conditions prevailed in the Moria camp. Tents and hygiene facilities were not provided by the authorities, so the refugees built their own homes. A supply of food was not guaranteed.

Since spring 2016, in order to implement the EU-Turkey Agreement of March 18, 2016 on the return of refugees coming from Turkey, it has been mainly a residence center where asylum seekers wait to apply for asylum in Greece in order to move to other European countries and the like. a. to be distributed or deported as part of family reunification. Giannis Balpakakis has headed the camp since 2016; because of the increasingly chaotic circumstances, he gave up in September 2019.

According to the EU-Turkey Agreement

In the EU-Turkey Agreement of March 18, 2016 , temporary and extraordinary measures were agreed "to end human suffering and restore public order". New “irregular migrants” who arrive on the Greek islands after March 20, 2016 and who do not apply for asylum or whose application is rejected as unfounded or inadmissible should be returned to Turkey at the expense of the European Union. For every Syrian who is returned to Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian refugee is to be resettled from Turkey to the EU. Migrants and refugees who arrive on the Greek islands after March 20, 2016 and who are likely to be returned to Turkey are no longer brought back to mainland Greece, as otherwise Turkey would not take back rejected asylum seekers.

Due to excessive demands on the Greek authorities, parts of the agreement were not implemented sufficiently. Thousands of unsuccessful asylum seekers could not be returned to Turkey. In addition, many refugees have been relocated from the islands to the mainland, but from there the return obligation for Turkey no longer applies. By March 2020, only around 1,500 migrants had been returned to Turkey, while the European Union has taken in around 7,000 refugees from Turkey who are eligible for asylum.

The Council of Europe and human rights organizations criticized the systematic overcrowding of the camps, where there was an inadequate supply of water, food, sanitary facilities and medicines. The Greek and European authorities should take immediate action to ensure the safety and protection of women and children and all other residents in the hotspots. Single men should be housed in accommodation separate from that of women, children and families. Residents and mayors of the islands repeatedly called for the camps to be closed and asylum seekers to be transferred to the mainland.

On April 26, 2016, there was a revolt of the detainees in a separate and fenced-in area for deportees and the area burned down. On September 19, 2016, a fire destroyed around 60% of the facilities in the refugee camp. Around 3,000 camp residents fled into the area. On November 15, 2016, inmates fought for hours with security forces. Two migrants died in a gas explosion that night.

For years, the regional prefect of the northern Aegean denounced the catastrophic conditions in Greece's largest hotspot. In September 2018, she threatened to close the camp. Under pressure from the international public, Migration Minister Dimitris Vitsas began to relocate particularly vulnerable people , such as children, pregnant women and the sick, to the mainland in autumn 2018.

In August 2019, the camp, which was designed for 2,800 people, was overcrowded with four times its capacity to accommodate refugees.

On September 29, 2019, two people died in a fire. In October 2019 the camp numbered 13,000 people. Hundreds of particularly vulnerable people were brought to the mainland under the supervision of the International Organization for Migration .

To relieve the overcrowded camps on the islands, the Greek government planned to relocate 20,000 refugees to mainland Greece in autumn 2019, which was partially implemented. Boris Cheshirkov, spokesman for Greece's UNHCR, said that the refugee pact between the EU and Turkey will not be weakened by the relocation, as those who are brought to the mainland are people whose asylum applications are likely to be approved.

In January 2020 there were already 19,000. On February 3, 2020, around 2,000 refugees ran to the port of the island's capital, Mytilini , demanding that their asylum applications be processed and protesting against the living conditions in the overcrowded camp. The police blocked the streets and used tear gas against the demonstrators. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called for the relocation of families and sick people to other places in February 2020. There were only three doctors, eight nurses and two midwives in the camp in February. In view of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic , a doctor working in the camp warned of the risk of an epidemic in the inadequately medically supplied overcrowded refugee camp. On March 16, 2020, a six-year-old girl died in a fire, whereupon an evacuation of the camp was again requested.

In view of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the organization Doctors Without Borders demanded an immediate evacuation of the camp and a decentralized distribution of the people. In the camp, 1,300 people shared a tap; Soap for washing hands is not available and there is no way to keep spatial distance . A Covid-19 outbreak in the camp cannot be contained. At the beginning of April 2020, Florian Westphal, the managing director of the German section of Doctors Without Borders , again demanded "an emergency evacuation of all refugees from the Covid 19 high-risk group immediately before the virus gets into the camps." Leaders of religious communities - including the Protestant Bishop Christian Stäblein and Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki - also called at the end of March and beginning of April 2020 to bring the people to the mainland. At the beginning of April 2020, German Development Minister Gerd Müller saw the camp's grievances as unsurpassed compared to other camps in the world. He referred to statements by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , according to which his help could already have been used to improve the infrastructure of the camp.

Hundreds of refugees were evacuated from the camp in April 2020 (including unaccompanied children and young people who were brought to Belgium and Germany).

Although there was no confirmed case of Cornona in the Moria camp, the refugees were only allowed to leave the premises in exceptional cases from March 21 to July 19, 2020.

At the beginning of May the Greek government moved 500 of the 19,300 people living in Moria to mainland Greece. At the end of May 2020, around 17,000 refugees were living in the camp. At the beginning of September 2020 there were around 13,000.

The Greek authorities set up prophylactic isolation wards in August 2020 after several cases of COVID-19 emerged in Lesbos at the Kara Tepe camp. At the beginning of September 2020, the first confirmed Covid-19 case in the camp became known, after which a two-week curfew was imposed on the camp. The virus was introduced by a former camp resident from mainland Greece. The 40-year-old man from Somalia had already been brought to the mainland as a recognized refugee, but could not get along there and took a ferry from Athens back to Lesbos.

Doctors Without Borders criticized the mass quarantine as irresponsible and dangerous in view of the overcrowding of the camp, the poor hygienic conditions and the lack of medical care. On September 8, 2020, it was announced that 35 residents of the camp had been diagnosed with Covid-19.

Major fire in 2020 and the consequences

During protests by migrants who did not want to go into isolation after a positive COVID-19 test, a fire broke out in the camp in the late evening of September 8, 2020. The flames were fanned by winds of up to 70 kilometers per hour. The camp burned out almost completely. By the morning of September 9th, the fire was largely under control. According to initial reports, there were no injuries. More than 12,000 people were left homeless by the fire, including 4,000 children. Thousands of people spent the following nights on the streets without an adequate supply of water and food. The Greek police used tear gas to protest against these conditions.

On September 12th, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for the refugees to be brought from the island of Lesbos to the mainland.

Six alleged arsonists were arrested on September 15. According to police, the arrested are Afghans whose asylum applications had been rejected. As a result, another dispute broke out in the EU over the refugee policy of the international community. In Germany, numerous politicians, aid organizations, the churches and the Central Council of Muslims demanded an immediate evacuation of the people. Many German federal states and an alliance of cities and municipalities offered places in their refugee accommodation and appealed to the federal government to use these places.

Aid organizations such as Caritas organized deliveries of medicines and Covid-19 protective clothing to Moria with the aim of establishing basic medical care for the homeless.

At the request of Greece, Germany, France and Belgium agreed to work with other EU countries to take in 400 unaccompanied minors from Moria who had been evacuated to mainland Greece directly after the fires. There are fears on the Greek side that migrants will set fire to camps on other islands in order to force their onward journey. Greece is striving for a general EU solution with a quota according to which other EU states accept asylum seekers.

On September 15, after consulting the Greek government, Germany announced that it would take in an additional 408 families with children from Greek islands. The Greek government also attached great importance to the fact that refugees not only from Lesbos and the burned down Moria camp, but also from other Greek islands are taken in. The 1553 people promised by the German government parties are, according to the government, already recognized refugees who are selected by the UNHCR and do not necessarily come from the island of Lesbos. A spokesman for the UNHCR pointed out that it would make more sense to relieve the Greek asylum authorities by accepting refugees in Germany without a completed procedure. Following a consultation with Greece, Belgium agreed to accept 100–150 particularly vulnerable refugees (families with children, mothers and single women) from the Moria camp.

In mid-September, the police began to clear the camp and put the people in a tent camp, the so-called Kara Tepe interim camp on Lesbos. At the end of September, 139 refugees, including 51 unaccompanied minors and 17 sick children with their families, arrived in Hanover by plane. According to a federal-state concept, the refugees will be distributed to the eight federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. The admission of further refugees follows.

reception

During the COVID-19 pandemic , the band Die Ärzte released their music video A Song for Now on March 27, 2020, commemorating the fate of the migrants in the camp.

In April 2020, Hans Maier and his family founded the Osterlicht Moria aid initiative .

The sociologist and former UN Special Rapporteur Jean Ziegler processed impressions of the refugee camp, which he had visited in May 2019 in his capacity as Vice-President of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council , in his book Die Schande Europa , published in 2020 .

literature

Individual evidence

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Coordinates: 39 ° 8 ′ 4.6 ″  N , 26 ° 30 ′ 12.6 ″  E