Greece: a fire in the migrant camp on the island of Samos "under control"

A fire broke out this Sunday evening in the reception and identification center for asylum seekers on the Greek island of Samos but it is now "

", we learned from a police and fire brigade source.

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"

" said a police source.

According to the fire department press office, "

."

"

" an official of the press service of the firefighters told AFP.

This disaster, which broke out this Sunday around 8:30 p.m. local time (5:30 p.m. GMT), comes ten days after the two gigantic fires that had ravaged the large overpopulated camp of Moria on the island of Lesbos.

Out on the streets for several days, most of the asylum seekers expelled from Moria - 10,000 people according to the authorities - were finally able to be installed in a camp hastily set up by the government near the port of Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos.

Frequent fires, fights between migrants

Like the one in Moria, the Samos reception and identification center is one of five such centers set up during the 2015 migration crisis on five Greek islands in the Aegean Sea (Lesbos, Samos, Kos , Leros, Chios) to stem the number of migrants arriving in Greece from neighboring Turkey.

The living conditions in the Samos camp, however smaller than that of Moria, numbering nearly 6,000 people - while its initial capacity was only foreseen for 650 asylum seekers - are also difficult: inadequate hygiene conditions , frequent fires, fights between migrants.

The camps for asylum seekers in Greece have been confined since mid-March because of the Covid-19 while the rest of the country returned to normality in early May.

This situation has increased tensions especially in the overcrowded camps on the islands where the number of cases of the new coronavirus was only a few dozen until the beginning of September.

According to authorities, 21 cases of Covid-19 have been detected in the Samos camp so far.