Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said the fires "began with the asylum seekers because of the quarantine imposed". (Photo by Manolis ... the situation is even worse. The world continues to turn its back. Other countries expected to take in children include Switzerland, Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Luxembourg and Portugal, according to German reports. Talks are ongoing with other states to take part, Mr Seehofer said. A translator looks at the large queue of refugees through the door of the clinic before triage. eople queue outside the wire-fenced cabin for hours before the clinic opens at four, hoping to be able to speak to a doctor about their child’s rash, their pregnancy-related abdominal pains, their hallucinations and flashbacks from witnessed violence, their sleep disturbance, their itch from having to wear nappies at night for fear of having to go to the toilet in the pitch-black camp. And when we send them back to their tents, I feel ashamed. The Blue Star Chios ferry, which has capacity to house 1,000 people, has docked at the Lesbos port of Sigri. We are busy today, as we are every day; there are a lot of people to see. Covid-19: The disinformation tactics used by China. Myanmar ambassador to UK 'locked out' of embassy1, 'Strong' evidence found for a new force of nature2, Navalny 'losing sensation in legs and hands'3, Jabs 'breaking link' between UK cases and deaths4, Kardashian tries to get photo wiped off the web5, PM 'deeply concerned' about Belfast violence6, Beijing now has more billionaires than any city7, Are pay-by-the-minute booths the future of work?9, Hong Kong citizens given 'support' to come to UK10. 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The charity sent staff to Lesbos, together with the Greek Council of Refugees, to assess the situation at the provisional site after a fire gutted the island’s Moria camp in September. Thousands of migrants and refugees left without shelter after a fire on the Greek island of Lesbos have been protesting against the construction of a replacement camp. Thousands of asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesvos fled for their lives as a huge fire ripped through the camp of Moria, the country’s largest migrant facility. As far as I’m aware, all of these patients are still alive. UNHCR head in Greece speaks at emergency site. The Netherlands has already pledged to accept 50 and Finland will take 11. We now have only one oxygen tank as we used the other on the children with carbon monoxide poisoning. Hell on earth — Greece's Moria refugee camp and its tortured history Life threatening. ', Med's deadly migrant crisis: In maps and charts, Protecting yourself from coronavirus in a migrant camp. He has heard that another child from a nearby tent is now in hospital in Athens with a brain infection. InfoMigrants went to meet some of them last week. But the Greek army has already begun setting up replacement accommodation. There has been no reliable electricity in the camp for more than two-and-a-half months now (with 20,000 people trying to use a grid made for 3,000, it constantly trips and cannot be relied upon for any period of time), and the threat of violence and sexual violence is incredibly high. A tense situation. Further fires left the camp almost completely destroyed. This is daily. Women and minors largely choose to wear nappies to avoid having to leave their tents after the sun goes down. New footage from Lesvos emergency site and Moria camp. This is daily. The sections for unaccompanied minors and vulnerable women consist of fenced areas with sleeping cabins inside, locked in a secure area near to the police and new arrivals areas. I start the tests on him. As the sun goes down, I always feel the atmosphere at triage and inside the clinic changes. The suffering is palpable, the hopelessness is insidious, the feeling of abandonment is all-consuming. She has waited patiently in line in the cold. On Friday, Germany announced that 10 European countries had agreed to take 400 unaccompanied minors who had been living in Moria. It has become a place of violence, deprivation, suffering and despair. The boredom in the camp is maddening and the asylum process is opaque. But officials have also increased security on the island. We carry crash bags and emergency drugs to the clinic every day in rucksacks and have them in A1 – the emergency care room – where any “red” patients are taken for emergencies that day. Meanwhile, some migrants told BBC Persian that the fire had broken out after scuffles between migrants and Greek forces at the camp. What happens to your body in extreme heat? We keep going. After visiting the area on Thursday, European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas announced that the devastated camp would be replaced by a modern facility at the same location. Moria Corona Awareness Team. There has been no reliable electricity in the camp for more than two-and-a-half months now (with 20,000 people trying to use a grid made for 3,000, it constantly trips and cannot be relied upon for any period of time), and the threat of violence and sexual violence is incredibly high. When the gate is unlocked there is a rush of people, each shouting that they are an emergency, waving their ausweis. The Moria camp has a capacity of 3,000 but is now overcrowded with over 20,000 people living there. And the madness continues. "The people in Moria are exposed to … Considering the outright violation of human rights and the grave medical and psychiatric needs we face every day, it is clear that Moria camp is in a state of emergency. What are you still seeing? Moria refugee camp is at breaking point; the situation is about to implode. He was seen to be shouting and screaming and then collapsed, breathing very heavily and not waking up. We prioritise the boy with the central chest stab as he appears to be having repeated apnoeic episodes. People from 70 countries had been sheltered there, most from Afghanistan. An entire family is dragged in, two of the four children unconscious and the father appearing confused, shouting about “fire”. The thermometers and SATs probes [oxygen measure] often stop working for the triage doctor outside the clinic as night draws in and temperatures drop, so throughout the shift we swap them with those inside. These thousands of vulnerable people spill out into the surrounding olive groves in makeshift tents, which are elevated on wooden palettes to try to prevent the cold from the freezing ground seeping into their tired, aching bodies. I can’t comprehend it. In Moria, this is not the case. Geneva Palais briefing note on situation for children affected by fire at Moria camp in Lesvos, and UNICEF response ... Thousands of asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesvos fled for their lives as a huge fire ripped through the camp of Moria, the country's largest migrant facility. There are four beds against the walls that can be pulled out in case of emergencies to allow access around the entire patient. Just as I start examining the child, I can hear shouting and the sound of someone being dragged along the gravel outside. The support crew member on the back door shouts “red patient” and I move the febrile child into the back space of the cabin, pulling the bed out and making space for the emergency. Kyaw Zwar Minn spends the night in his car after saying the military attaché "occupied" the embassy. Their resilience and care for their fellow refugees nearly chokes me. “Green” patients need urgent care; “yellow” patients are severely unwell with abnormal vital signs and require a full examination on a bed; “red” emergency patients usually suffer from major panic attacks, extreme pain, collapses and, increasingly, life-threatening stab wounds or the results of other violence. Here are their stories. Meanwhile, as residents at “Moria 2.0” tried to make the best of the situation, the community at Pikpa were planning to spend their final days lobbying to save the space. Families have been sleeping in fields and on roads after fleeing the blaze on Wednesday, as authorities struggle to find accommodation for them. "There is no food, no milk for the baby," Congolese migrant Natzy Malala, who had a newborn infant and an eight-year-old girl, told Reuters news agency. Italy and Greece have accused wealthier northern countries of failing to do more, while a number of central and eastern nations are openly resistant to the idea of taking in a quota of migrants. I go back to debrief the team; the translators are already cleaning the blood from the floor, beds and walls. I kept a diary of the cases I saw, thinking it would be cathartic after the chaos to read through one or two major incidents, for personal processing purposes. This kind of thing reaches through the camp, adding to the feeling of resignation and hopelessness. "We've faced this situation for five years, it's time for others to bear this burden." Many local Greeks too want the migrants to leave the island. Our clinic runs on the grid, regularly tripping out, and we carry out our consultations by the glow of head torches and battery-operated lights. "The shameful situation in the camp and the fire disaster are the direct result of a failed European refugee policy - now the EU must finally help the people affected," the open letter reads. The island's residents also oppose the reconstruction of the camp and have blocked roads to stop aid deliveries. They are triaged at the door by one medic alongside a translator in Farsi and Arabic. I have gone to volunteer, as many have before me and many continue to do while I return to my home, where I have central heating, regular food I can choose, and my freedom – and all of these afforded to me only by my luck at birth. This is not abnormal. This time two young men from the sections for unaccompanied minors are dragged in between friends, gasping and covered in blood. All 400 children have now been flown to the Greek mainland. As the military begins constructing new tents on Lesbos, Greece has also sent three ships to provide accommodation for some 2,000 migrants. I get a sense of desperation and hostility, not usually played out, but always at the back of my mind. The men have been running with him unconscious in the blanket for 10 minutes to reach the medical area. Photograph: Tessa Kraan/BRF, A doctor’s story: inside the ‘living hell’ of Moria refugee camp, n the Greek island of Lesbos is the Moria refugee camp, constructed for 3,100 people but now with a population of more than 20,000 men, women and children. At the end of our clinic time, the responsibility for the medical care of patients in the camp is down to a lone “army doctor”, who cannot be accessed by patients unless the police deem them to have a serious enough medical problem. On Friday, migrants and refugees approached police barriers blocking the road out of Moria camp, holding signs calling for "freedom" and opposing the construction of a new camp. How do you weigh up the risks of the AZ vaccine? Are pay-by-the-minute booths the future of work? Version française plus bas/French version below. We must open the conversation once more, we must consider taking responsibility for our fellow humans. It has not come. "The safety and shelter of all people in Moria is a priority," she tweeted. Those people in the camps really want freedom and they … Apparently they went to a neighbour’s tent where a fire was lit for warmth after sundown, and have been exposed to carbon monoxide for a sustained period of time. We had gone through some team pre-hospital trauma care earlier in the week and have had daily exposure to stabbings by now, so we get to work putting in lines and assessing each patient. We do not know where he is and we do not know the details of his rejection. He wrote: “ In all of my years of medical practice, I have never witnessed such overwhelming numbers of people suffering from serious mental health conditions, as I am witnessing now amongst … The Moria camp is a 10-minute drive from the port of Mitilini, the largest city on Lesbos. We assessed and stabilised them all and got them to hospital. I am the narrator of the stories of the people still there; this is not about me. The Moria camp packed thousands of people into a space the size of a Walmart, forcing many to live in squalor and leaving the camp severely vulnerable to COVID-19. I have no solution, but I want to give a voice to these silenced people, and hope there is a willing audience prepared to begin to listen. Images of Moria refugee camp taken in July 2017 and January 2020 illustrate the population explosion. I call all five doctors and the emergency nurse to the cabin and we split into teams, with two translators at each bedside. A boy plays with a scooter in front of rubbish bags in area outside camp Moria. Some 20 firefighters battled the blaze at the Moria camp - designed for fewer than 3,000 people - as migrants, many suffering from smoke exposure, fled. They come with the infamous “Moria flu” and a whole range of chronic problems one would normally expect in a population of this size. Two naval vessels have also been provided. And we work at full capacity. Some of those infected with the virus had reportedly refused to move into isolation with their families. Sanitary conditions are grim. There's little running water, and washing is difficult. The hubbub created by another “red” patient draws close and echoes around outside the clinic. I am a doctor from London and I have just spent three weeks working for the Boat Refugee Foundation (BRF). During my time there, one of our most calm, loyal, and impressive translators was arrested after a second rejection and deported without papers, and without a lawyer. There has been no electricity in the camp now for two and a half months. Patients can only enter with their police papers, known as their ausweis, which contain their photograph, name and number. On a car park outside a supermarket on Thursday, hundreds of migrants, including families with small children, waited for bottled water and food to be distributed. Moria is within a former military base surrounded by olive groves. On the last night I was working we saw four life-threatening stabbings, including a stabbed neck and an open chest. There, he has been supporting a local initiative called "Stand By Me Lesvos“. “The situation in Moria cannot continue because it is a matter of public health, humanity and national security at the same time,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement. As the ambulance arrives, we beg them to come down to the clinic gates to minimise the time transferring the boys in the freezing cold. One stabbing like this in London would receive emergency trauma care from a highly trained team, probably in a major trauma centre. The clinic has two rooms, split into four consultation areas. European governments should step up urgent efforts to relocate nearly 13,000 men, women, and children left homeless by fires inside Moria camp on the Greek Aegean island of Lesbos. The Moria camp was initially designed to house 3000 migrants. People queue in the dark from 6:30 to try to get help. Women and minors largely choose to wear nappies to avoid having to leave their tents after the sun goes down. Moria is the largest of five centres on Greece’s Aegean islands and has become a symbol of Europe’s response to the arrival of asylum seekers and migrants on boats from nearby Turkey. One person carried a large piece of cardboard emblazoned with the message: "We don't want food, we want freedom." Because there is no electricity in the camp, the darkness outside is engulfing. Without BRF, I know many would have died every day in the three short weeks I was there: adults – both men and women – from violent stabbings that are stabilised by medics trained briefly in “stop the bleed”; children from a new outbreak of meningitis whose fevers spike at night in their tents; vulnerable women in labour; four-day-old babies sleeping in freezing tents. The ambulance will not drive up to the clinic (a short distance from the front gate of the camp) for safety reasons after dark unless in extreme emergencies, so we run the children down to the ambulance when it arrives, connecting their masks to the oxygen in the ambulance and sending them on their way. Rose is breastfeeding her baby, born last August while living in the chaos of the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The mother is crying and the father looks ashen-faced as he explains through the Farsi translator that they are worried as the child won’t drink and looks tired. “Covid-19 has reached almost every corner of this planet, so I can’t imagine why it shouldn’t hit Moria,” said Dr. van de Vijver. He did not say, however, that the fires were a deliberate act of arson aimed at destroying the camp. UNHCR has extensive video coverage of the situation on Lesvos available at Refugees Media, including these recent videos. We decide to decompress that side of his chest with a cut to his chest wall. “ The EU and Greek response following the Moria fire has been pitiful. Has Greece become more hostile to migrants? Despite seeing multiple patients suffering with panic attacks every day, the sound of the screams still shocks and chills me as I wonder: what have you seen? This child is persistently hot and lethargic, and has a concerning rash. Refugees speak of dreadful reality inside Lesvos' Moria camp. The tension is released, for now. On the Greek island of Lesbos is the Moria refugee camp, constructed for 3,100 people but now with a population of more than 20,000 men, women and children. Before the devastating fires, conditions at the camp were already extremely dire. On any given day, we can see 180 to 250 patients during clinic hours. India ignores Covid surge to hold IPL cricket tournament, Covid-19: The disinformation tactics used by China. A mother comes in with her four-year-old child who has a very high fever, and who hasn’t been eating, drinking or responding to her properly for hours. The majority of doctors are not used to dealing with acute stabbings: BRF has not actively recruited for emergency doctors previously, as we were offering more clinic-based urgent care. We make up the clinic team, and respond together as the crowds enter. Navalny 'losing sensation in legs and hands', Jabs 'breaking link' between UK cases and deaths. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. They have started responding by the time they are in the ambulance, and we know they will be OK. We are fortunate to have a psychiatric nurse in our team, and once any more sinister pathology is excluded, we move the man to a back room to rest and be reviewed by her, to plan onward referral and care. By Bethany Bell, BBC News, Lesbos. We start oxygen from our transported cylinders on the children who are not responding, wrap them in emergency blankets, and call the ambulance, while checking over the others. As more and more countries are going into quarantine to slow down the spread of the coronavirus, there is one place on the planet where the situation could well become even more catastrophic than in the rest of the world: the Moria refugees camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, off the Turkish coast. Moria refugee camp is at breaking point; the situation is about to implode. The fire at Moria was "a sharp reminder to all of us for what we need to change in Europe", the interior minister said. It has become a place of violence, deprivation, suffering and despair. BRF is the only emergency medical provider for the entire camp between the evening hours of four and 11. The new camp is home to about 10,000. Military personnel, riot police and water cannon have arrived at the scene. Simply horrible. Myanmar ambassador to UK 'locked out' of embassy. We have boxes with the essentials for consultations – oxygen saturation probes, blood pressure cuffs, thermometers and ophthalmoscopes. They strongly oppose plans to rebuild a temporary camp. Moria refugee camp, the largest in Europe, went up in flames earlier this month. Singing and banging plastic bottles, they march up and down a stretch of coastal road, calling for the right to leave Lesbos. Daniel: Hello Thomas! I call the febrile child in. The names of patients to be seen are written on a whiteboard in order of priority and we call them inside one by one. More than 4 years ago Pope Francis visited Moria camp. Over 12,000 men, women and children ran in panic out of containers and tents and into adjoining olive groves and fields as the fire destroyed most of the overcrowded, squalid camp. Moria camp on Lesbos has been criticized many times, for instance, a year ago when MSF psychiatrist Alessandro Barberio sent an open letter in 2018 alarming the emergency situation of the camp. VideoCovid-19: The disinformation tactics used by China, Call My Agent star joins plea to reopen French theatres, 'I can't change my gender unless I'm sterilised' Video'I can't change my gender unless I'm sterilised', A shrinking river sparks a fight for water access, ‘Please don’t lend Kenya more money’. The translators – non-medical but now accustomed to this type of emergency – grab oxygen masks, gauze and cannula dressings, and squeeze in fluid like members of a trained trauma team. Read about our approach to external linking. The Moria refugee camp is the largest refugee camp in Greece located on the island of Lesbos. He has also said that the Commission's proposals for a new pact on migration and asylum, due to be presented on 30 September, will "put an end to this unacceptable situation". They agree and also agree to take both boys at the same time – a rare occurrence, but last week a young man died from a stab wound and we work together in the dark shadow of this memory. The next day we had a 16-year-old boy, again from the supposedly protected sections, fall through the back doors of the clinic with a knife still in his back. It is basic but functional. He looks at the floor, apologises for attending, but asks for help. This once again brought to the forefront of people’s minds, the desperate situation of many people fleeing their native countries and seeking asylum abroad. Read about our approach to external linking. There is also strong resistance from locals for a new camp to house them. This will happen inwardly, harming some of the most vulnerable people in the world. There is also strong resistance from locals for a new camp to house … This will happen inwardly, harming some of the most vulnerable people in the world. It works for a few minutes, then fills with blood again. He is a young man in his teens, unconscious, dragged in a dark grey blanket by four people from the surrounding tents. People from 70 countries had been sheltered there, most from Afghanistan. Life has become a ''living hell'' for refugees and asylum-seekers at the Moria reception centre on the Greek island of Lesvos, a space designed for 2,200 people but now hosting place hosting over 18,000. Unless there is a life-threatening emergency, they will wait until the day clinic opens at nine. After a fire destroyed that camp, the two women were repatriated to the Kara Tepe camp, along with more than 6,000 other people. Last modified on Thu 20 Feb 2020 10.33 GMT. "We've faced this situation for five years, it's time for others to bear this burden.". By midway through my second week in the camp, we have had three confirmed cases of meningococcal meningitis and are considering a camp-wide vaccination programme. Little did I know how much the events from just one day would catch in my throat on re-reading. They are understaffed. I want to tell you about one day in the life of the little portable cabin clinic where I worked. The fires started hours after reports that 35 people had tested positive for Covid-19 at the camp. Authorities placed the facility under quarantine last week after a Somali migrant was confirmed to have contracted coronavirus. They come with infected wounds that need cleaning and bandaging; they have minimal access to clean water out in the olive grove areas. 0:41. We are a team from across the world – when I was on Lesbos there was a mix of Dutch, French, English, American and Spanish doctors, nurses and support crew. By that time the situation was already degrading and inhuman, urging him to call for immediate action: “A broader international consensus and an assistance programme are urgently needed to uphold the rule of law, to defend human rights in this unsustainable situation, to protect minorities, combat human trafficking, to eliminate … We switch the oxygen tank to him, while stabilising the other boy’s bleeding, and plan how to extricate both on stretchers from the tiny clinic room. In this article, we provide a firsthand account of our experiences volunteering as doctors at this very same camp earlier in the year. We have still not been able to contact him. "We don't want another camp, and we will oppose any construction work," local leader Vangelis Violatzis was quoted as saying. Initially built for 2,200 people, the camp has hosted almost ten times the amount of people it … The question of how to deal with the mass arrivals of migrants, mainly to Italy and Greece, has divided the EU for years. December 14. Child migrants sleep in pens at Lesbos port, Tear gas fired as migrants hold protest on Lesbos, Greek islanders strike over crowded migrant camps. We have only two oxygen tanks so rotate them in response to clinical need. Now a thunderstorm with very heavy winds and rain. Almost 13,000 people had been living in squalor in the overcrowded Moria camp and are desperate to leave the island. People queue outside the wire-fenced cabin for hours before the clinic opens at four, hoping to be able to speak to a doctor about their child’s rash, their pregnancy-related abdominal pains, their hallucinations and flashbacks from witnessed violence, their sleep disturbance, their itch from having to wear nappies at night for fear of having to go to the toilet in the pitch-black camp. In the acute phase we provide emergency care for these patients and their friends, relatives and tent-mates, who listen to them cry at night, and drag them to the clinic in blankets when they have attacks. We see the next patients. As we wait for the ambulance to arrive, the other one starts to gargle and choke. Most of them have made a treacherous journey to come to this unsafe place; 40% of them are children. Another banner read: "Moria kills all lives". 7K … This is a classic picture of a panic attack associated with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and a common presentation to the clinic. Refugees and migrants in the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos March 2020. The Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos has burned to the ground. One of his lungs is filling up with air and blood where he has been stabbed. A month ago, on September 12, the Greek government opened a new migrant camp on Lesbos, after Moria was destroyed by fire. An urgent effort to help thousands of homeless asylum-seekers on Lesvos. Lewis says, “We’ve in some ways been waiting for something like this to happen, because of the heightened tensions among people there on Lesbos. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said France and Germany would each accept between 100 and 150 of the children. An Interview with Thomas Osten-Sacken, managing director at Wadi, about the situation in Moria, Lesvos By Daniel Benyamin, 21.06.2020 Since the beginning of March, Thomas has been on the Greek island of Lesvos, in the refugee camp Moria.