In a meeting with the mayors of the Greek islands hosting refugees, Mitsotakis said that a park is to be built on the former Moria migrant camp on the island of Lesbos, German news agency DPA reported Thursday.
The notorious Moria camp, which hosted around 12,500 refugees and migrants, burned down last September after residents of the camp allegedly set the fire there.
The prime minister also repeated that the temporary Kara Tepe camp, set up after Moria was destroyed, would be replaced by another camp, DPA reports, quoting the Greek Kathimerini newspaper. The new camp will be built somewhere else on Lesbos — with the support and financial help of the EU, Mitsotakis said.
There are currently around 15,000 refugees and migrants living on the Aegean Islands of Lesbos (8,837), Samos (3,441), Chios (1,978), Kos (481), and Leros (397).
The temporary camp of Kara Tepe on Lesbos, which has also been dubbed ‘Moria 2.0’, now holds just under 7,000 people, with a maximum capacity of 10,000, according to official figures by the Greek Ministry of Civil Protection from March 1.
Precarious Conditions for Migrants
At the meeting with island mayors, Mitsotakis claimed that despite its temporary nature, Kara Tepe is still much better than Moria ever was, according to Kathimerini.
Yet migrant aid organizations have said that the conditions at Kara Tepe are far below minimum standards and have called for the immediate evacuation of migrants to the mainland. Situated directly by the coast on a former military firing range, the Kara Tepe camp is exposed to the elements, and heavy storms have repeatedly caused flooding and collapses of tents.
In a letter sent to the Greek ombudsman last month, the organization Legal Centre Lesvos wrote “insufficient healthcare, privacy, food, electricity, running water, hot showers and other hygiene facilities” camp. Furthermore, they said that only 269 toilets at Kara Tepe were operational. (This would mean that on average more than 25 people share one toilet.) “Measures in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are inadequate and physical distancing is impossible, given that camp residents have to queue to access all necessities,” Legal Centre Lesvos warned.
In early February, Greece’s migration minister had announced that Kara Tepe was ‘largely’ equipped for winter. Despite some improvements (new showers were installed, for the first time with hot water.)
Residents in Lesbos Rally in Solidarity for Migrants
Moreover, a recent report by the NGO Civil Fleet describes how children at the Kara Tepe camp (they make up around 36% of the camp’s population) are traumatized and depressed to the point where they have stopped talking and playing is self-harming, and have thoughts of suicide.
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic and harsh winter weather that has hit Greece over the past few days, residents of the island of Lesbos — where over 7,500 asylum seekers are hosted — have made an impassioned plea to help as many people as they can.
In the wake of the “Medea” cold front that hit Greece recently, photos and videos circulated by asylum seekers staying at the controversial Kara Tepe “tent city” camp on Lesbos showed large areas of the camp buried in snow.
Many of the tents at Kara Tepe, set up by the sea, do not have a floor, with people sleeping on the ground. According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 40% of the population at Kara Tepe are children.