The first coronavirus case reported in the notorious Moria refugee camp, on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos. The camp is placed under quarantine lockdown for the next 14 days.
A 40 year old man has tested positive for COVID-19, and what humanitarian workers have feared has become reality.
A team from the National Organization of Public Health(EODY) is expected to arrive, to try to trace people whom he might have been in contact with.
Moria house about 13.000 people, who is crammed together under extremely poor conditions, EODY will have a difficult task trying to track the virus inside Moria, Europe’s biggest refugee camp.
A lockdown would mean that any entry or exit from the structure will be prohibited, and there will be a enhanced police presence to enforce the 24 hours curfew of the camp. How this will be implemented in a camp where most of the people lives outside the fence, and the fence in the office structure is full of holes, remains to be seen.
The Ministry of Migration and Asylum is already trying to use this for political gain, and states that this incident reinforces the need to implement the work of creating a closed controlled structure in Moria, basically a prison.