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European Council Chief Charles Michel on the Greek island of Lesbos, 15 September 2020 [Council Press Room]
Germany said on Tuesday (September 15) that it will host more than 1,500 refugees from Greece, in addition to the 150 unaccompanied minors whose camp caught fire on the island of Lesbos as Berlin tried to mobilize a new EU reaction to a migration crisis from years. it lit up again.
EU countries have been forced to take on the challenge when thousands of former occupiers of the Moria countryside in Lesbos slept in abandoned buildings, roadsides and roofs, after their shelters were destroyed by a chimney on the night of 8 September.
Greece on Monday accused migrants of intentionally burning their overcrowded camp last week on the island of Lesbos, where many others reluctantly moved to a new transitority without “showers or mattresses. “
German Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right coalition agreed to take in 1,553 refugees from Greece, in addition to unaccompanied minors from the burned camp.
Germany will now also welcome families with young people who have already been given prestige as refugees in Greece, but who may not be from Moria.
France has agreed to accommodate 150 children in the camp, while other EU countries admit a total of 100 other dying young people.
Merkel lamented the lack of a concerted European reaction on Tuesday on which she is credited.
“This is a sign of Europe’s values and capacity for action,” he said at an assembly of his parliamentary organization in Berlin, according to the participants.
Meanwhile, Greek said six suspects, adding “young foreigners,” had been arrested in Lesbos in connection with the fire.
Greek officials have continually said that the chimney began through migrants who were remote after testing positive for coronavirus.
Another chimney exploded Tuesday night near a camp on Samos Island where more than 4,700 migrants live.
“There is a place for a wildfire near the camp, but it is manageable,” a source of the fire site told the AFP.
Needs a ‘strong’ EU response
European Council chief Charles Michel on a flight to Lesbos after talks with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens suggested that the bloc of 27 nations “take on more responsibilities. “
“We need the efforts of the Greek authorities,” Michel said.
“We want to go further to improve our border controls . . . we want to have more partnerships with third countries, we can’t solve everything on our own,” he said on a hill overlooking a new tent camp set up through the Greek Authorities.
It is our duty to the frontline countries and Greece.
Migration requires a coherent European reaction to the values that bring us closer. MoriaCamp pic. twitter. com/rSQPepGVTY
– Charles Michel (@eucopresident) 15 September 2020
EU Internal Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said that “between 8 and 9,000 more people will quickly set up a transit shelter there. “
– Ylva Johansson (@YlvaJohansson) 15 September 2020
Five years after more than one million asylum seekers arrived in Europe, many of whom fled the wars in Iraq and Syria, the question of the percentage of the bloc in its daily refugee work remains sensitive.
Opposition from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to receiving refugees has been a major impediment in the EU to reform their immigration and asylum policies.
Even in Germany, politicians hesitate to see the same scenes of mass arrivals of migrants as in 2015, which the right took advantage of to gain a place in parliament.
This time, the Merkel government has insisted that it is essential to find a European solution to this problem.
A “fair and effective response” to the challenge is needed, Michel said in Athens.
1000 migrants in a new camp
Many migrants refused to enter the new white carp camp near the port village of Panagiouda, fearing they would not pass through the interior once.
Others, however, reluctantly see him in the scorching heat.
On Tuesday, Greece’s Ministry of Migration, around 1,000 of Moria’s 12,000 migrants, stayed on site.
Of these, 21 were tested for coronavirus.
“There’s nothing in the camp, no showers, no mattresses,” Malik, an Algerian migrant, told AFP on the phone from the camp where he now lives with his wife and five children.
“There’s one meal a day and they give us a cardboard carton with six bottles of water,” the French teacher said.
Many migrants also animosity of the people of Lesbos.
There have been common incidents between asylum seekers and residents, who have been added up to the far-right ones, since last year.
Kostas Mountzouris, governor of the northern Aegean region that covers Lesbos and one of the most pressing war parts of the new camp, called on businesses to demonstrate on Tuesday and call for “the expulsion of migrants from the island. “
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