LESBOS ISLAND, Greece: Police on the Greek island of Lesbos on Thursday launched an operation to rehouse thousands of asylum seekers sleeping rough for over a week after Europe鈥檚 largest migrant camp was destroyed by fire.
Officers woke the migrants in their tents and sleeping bags on the roadsides to take them to the temporary center that was hastily set up after Europe鈥檚 largest camp for asylum seekers at Moria burned down last week.
Quietly, with only the sounds of children crying, and under a hot sun the migrants folded their blankets, picked up bags containing whatever belongings they had saved from the fire and dismantled their tents.
Women and children with bundles on their backs were seen gathering by a barricade police had set up on the road.
鈥淚t鈥檚 awful, there鈥檚 nothing in it, not enough food, toilets, no shower, there鈥檚 not even a bed,鈥� Mustafa, a Sudanese asylum seeker, told AFP, after arriving at the temporary camp a few kilometers from the burnt out Moria camp.
A migration ministry source said some 2,800 people were inside the new camp.
鈥淭he aim is to safeguard public health,鈥� police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos told AFP in Athens, confirming that 鈥渁n operation is underway鈥� which 鈥渞esponds to humanitarian aims.鈥�
He said around 70 women police officers took part in the operation. Videos posted by police showed women officers in white uniforms talking to migrant families.
Eight organizations providing legal assistance to migrants on Thursday noted that although asylum processes had begun anew, lawyers had not been given access to the new camp.
鈥淣either asylum seekers nor legal support organizations have until now received any information from Greek authorities about this facility,鈥� the organizations said in a statement, noting that claimants were being called to interviews via teleconference without legal representation.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which opened an emergency clinic in the area, said they were initially barred from accessing the facility during the night. They were later allowed to reopen.
Over 12,000 people including entire families with elderly and newborns were left homeless when fire broke out on the night of September 8 in the overcrowded and unsanitary Moria camp 鈥� which came to prominence five years ago at the height of Europe鈥檚 migrant crisis.
Six young Afghans have been arrested in connection with the incident, with four of them brought before a Lesbos magistrate on Wednesday.
Thousands of the migrants have been sleeping under tarpaulins or tents at roadsides and in the car parks of closed supermarkets since the blaze.
Late Wednesday, around 1,000 tents, each able to accomodate between eight and 10 people, had been erected at the new site near Moria.
Medical tents were to be set up, and two quarantine zones were planned for the several dozen people who have tested positive for coronavirus.
But many migrants have refused to enter the new camp, fearing they would be left waiting for months to have their requests for asylum processed so that they can be transferred to the Greek mainland or to another European country.
The UN refugee agency on Wednesday urged Greece to speed up asylum processes on Lesbos.
鈥淭he idea is not that people remain for ever on the island of Lesbos, but that processes are accelerated so that people can leave gradually and in an orderly way鈥� to the capital Athens or elsewhere on the mainland, the UN agency鈥檚 chief in Greece Philippe Leclerc told reporters.
Greece鈥檚 police minister Michalis Chrysochoidis this week said that 鈥渉alf鈥� the migrants on Lesbos should be able to leave 鈥渂y Christmas鈥� and 鈥渢he rest by Easter.鈥�
Local communities on Thursday filed a legal complaint against the new camp, arguing that it was likely built without the proper environmental and archaeological permits.