Migrants set fire to refugee container in Greek island

By Vasiliki Mitsinioutou

ATHENS (AA) - Three migrants set the container they lived in on fire inside the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos early Tuesday, the second such incident in two days.

Three Algerians set fire to the container that served as their shelter to protest their prolonged stay on the island, according to police.

They were arrested and the fire brigade conducted a preliminary investigation, said police. This is the second incident involving fire in two days.

Around 300 people of different nationalities set fire to garbage bins outside the premises of the camp Monday and they threw objects at security forces who responded with stun grenades, said police.

On Sunday, dozens of Iraqis and Syrians, mostly families with children, protested in a central square of Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, chanting the slogan “We are refugees, not criminals”. Their demand was again to be allowed to leave the island for mainland Greece and then Europe, according to the police.

The number of migrants arriving by sea has been significantly reduced due to a EU-Turkish refugee agreement aimed at managing the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Asylum procedures have slowed dramatically since. At the same time, the number of people who have arrived until now has exceeded the accommodation capacity resulting in overcrowded spaces and living conditions that have worsened every day.

There are currently 4,207 refugees and migrants on the Greek islands, according to official data.

These islands in the Aegean Sea have been the main gateways to Europe for the last two years.

Since 2015, a little fewer than 1 million migrants have entered Greece by sea, according to United Nations refugee agency data. Syrians are accounted for as the largest group, trailed by nationals from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Only four migrants arrived in the last 24 hours, according to police, all four of them reached the coasts of Chios while no arrival was recorded on Lesbos and Samos.