Moria refugee camp
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Mória Reception & Identification Centre (in Greek : Κέντρο Υποδοχής και Ταυτοποίησης Μόριας), better known as Mória Refugee Camp, or just "Mória", is the biggest refugee camp in Europe located outside the Moria Μόρια – Mória) village near Mytilene. Enclosed with barbed wire and a chain-link fence, the military camp serves as a European Union “hotspot”. It is described by Human Rights Watch as an open air prison. In August 2018, it was dubbed by the field coordinator of Doctors Without Borders "The worst refugee camp on earth", as reported by the BBC.
"I have never seen, ever the level of suffering we are witnessing here every day" says Luca Fontana, MSF Lesbos coordinator (7'42) . Conditions have only degraded since then. The camp was built to accommodate around 3,000 people, however there were around 20,000 people living in the camp in summer 2020, among whom 6,000 to 7000 were children under the age of 18. Because of overcrowding, the camp has expanded into a nearby olive grove, known as "Moria jungle", where the living quarters are makeshift, typically made out of pallets and tarps. The migrants have cut down an estimated 5,000 olive trees, some of them centuries old, to use as firewood. The residents of the nearby village of Moria have complained of increased criminality, including break-ins, vandalism, and looting of houses. Moria is still functioning, as the refugee crisis is still ongoing. Every month, hundreds of refugees and migrants cross the Mediterranean sea and land in Moria.
Visited in 2019, the camp was described as "the recreation of a concentration camp on European soil" by Jean Ziegler, vice-chairman of the committee of experts advising the UN Human Rights Council.
On 8 September 2020, a fire badly damaged the camp of more than 12,000 asylum seekers, which may have been started deliberately to protest quarantine measures, that came after detecting positive COVID-19 cases in the camp. On 10 September, three Greek ships were sent to help shelter the migrants.
By 10 September, the camp was almost completely destroyed.
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Moria refugee camp is the biggest refugee camp in Europe. Formerly a prison, Moria is a refugee camp located outside Moria village near Mytilene, the main city on Lesbos. Enclosed with barbed wire and a chain-link fence, the camp serves as a European Union receiving center or “hotspot” but is described by Human Rights Watch as an open air prison. When refugees first arrive in Mytilene seeking asylum, they must be screened in Moria and cannot be placed into any of the other nearby camps until they are processed there. The camp was built to accommodate around 3000 people, however there are now over 17000 people living in the camp. Because of extreme overcrowding, the camp has expanded into a nearby olive grove, where the living quarters are makeshift, typically made out of tarps. Human Rights Watch has termed the camp as "unfit for animals". In October 2017, refugees protested the Moria's poor conditions and the violence prevalent in the camp. Moria is still functioning, as the refugee crisis is still ongoing. Every day, hundreds of refugees make the dangerous passage across the Mediterranean sea only to be held in inhumane camps such as Moria.
