Major fire at migrant camp on Greek island of Samos
20 September, 2021
A large fire that broke out on Sunday evening at the Vathy migrant camp on the Greek island of Samos has been brought under control, the Greek Ministry of Migration said.
"There is no danger for those who are still there because the fire broke out in abandoned sheds in the western side of the camp," the ministry said.
Thirteen firefighters with six engines were fighting the blaze and there were no reports of injury, the fire brigade said.
Earlier, as the fire still burned, the mayor of Samos, Girgos Stantzos, told AFP that the site had been entirely evacuated.
Migrants, including children in tears, were gathered at a car park near the camp.
The camp, due for closure at the end of the month, was still housing 300 people awaiting transfer on Monday to a new "closed" camp opened this weekend by Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi.
The ministry said all of the asylum-seekers were moved to an empty space near the entrance of the camp.
Ten unaccompanied minors were expected to be taken to the new closed Samos centre later on Sunday and the rest of the migrants to be shifted there as planned on Monday.
The new Samos camp, opened on Saturday, is the first of five such centres, which are opposed by rights groups who say the access measures are too restrictive.
A double barbed-wire fence surrounds the 12,000-square-metre camp, which has surveillance cameras, X-ray scanners and magnetic doors.
It also includes a detention centre for migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected and who are to be sent back to Turkey.
Campaigners had long denounced conditions at the Vathy camp.
Samos is one of the Aegean islands taking in migrants from nearby Turkey. Between 2015 and 2016 it sheltered nearly 7,000 asylum-seekers. It was only built to take in 680 people.
A year ago, the overcrowded camp at Moria, on the nearby Greek island of Lesbos, went up in flames, destroyed in two fires that in quick succession left 13,000 people without shelter for several days.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com
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