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Migrants and refugees stand next to burning house containers at the Moria refugee camp, on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, Greece
ACTIVISTS hit out at Europe’s treatment of refugees today, the day after fire in a massively overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos killed a woman and her baby.
The blaze in the European Union-sponsored Moria camp — built to house 3,000 but now home to more than 13,000 people, the majority Afghan — is believed to have started yesterday afternoon near or inside a shipping container in which the woman lived.
Accounts differ between the Lesbos authorities, refugees and charity workers at the scene. The Associated Press agency reported that camp-dwellers started the fire in a desperate protest against their conditions. But soon after police arrived the camp was doused in tear gas and fights ensued.
A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE