Tonight several fires broke out in the notorious Moria refugee camp on Lesvos. It’s by far the worst fire Moria have ever seen, and it would take a miracle if anything remains standing in the morning.
It seems like every part of the camp and surrounding areas are engulfed in flames, the new hospital in Moria is gone, so are the quarantine area Mandala. People are fleeing, a mass amount of people are heading towards Mytilíni.
All assets on Lesvos is being used, fire department, police, riot police, to try to get things under control, but it seems hopeless, the fire is just to massive, growing bigger by the minute.
Moria was the biggest refugee camp in Europe, housing almost 13.000 people, most of them have now lost what little they had. Where all these people will stay in the coming days and weeks, will be a huge and almost impossible challenge.
What caused these fires is to early to say, but riots is the most plausible explanation. The camp has been under lockdown for months, stem has been building up. Greek government has used the pandemic, as a pretext to keep camps closed all over Greece, people have just had enough, tonight it exploded.
The announcement that 35 COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in Moria, could have been the factor that made people snap, in the worst refugee camp in Europe. How Lesvos can handle this disaster is difficult to see.
Let’s just pray that no life has been lost in the flames..