Night falls in Moria: sleeping in rubble and on the ground

Night falls on Lesbos and the Moria Highway is abuzz with human figures dodging rubble and trucks.

The shoulder and the olive groves are occupied by families and groups of refugees who left this week the settlement of migrants from the Greek island.

Three fires devastated the largest refugee camp in Europe, a black hole in the history of the EU in which 13,000 homeless people lived.

“In two years that I have been here, this is the worst I have experienced,” says Ali Ahmed, a 24-year-old Somali volunteer.

Citizens like the Afghan Shokor Rizayi have set up a tent donated by an NGO on the side of the road.

Rizayi sits on a plastic bucket and lights herself with a bonfire fueled by planks of wood from the remains of the burned settlement.

He lost all his belongings in the fire and has not been able to wash for four days.

Rizayi crossed from Turkey to Lesbos a year ago.

He claims to be 16 years old but does not have documentation to prove it and is fighting for the Greek Migration Ministry to recognize it, to be able to benefit from the reception that countries such as France or Germany are offering for unaccompanied minors from Moria.

UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, says there are 407 unprotected minors in Moria, although Rizayi assumes there are many more.

As he explains this, a boy crosses dragging a box tied to a string and an old mattress.

"There are pregnant women sleeping on the ground, and there are only two doctors in the area, from Doctors Without Borders," says Ali Ahmed, who works as a volunteer at the Danish NGO Team Humanity.

The NGO's facilities are home to 500 people who fled their camps when the flames devoured them.

At the access to the Team Humanity area there is a constant walk of refugees who come to ask for food, clothing and hygiene material.

Inside the enclosure, the 150 families hosted there have returned to camp, again without space for a minimum margin of privacy.

Ali corroborates the threat that UNHCR and Doctors Without Borders have highlighted these days: the risk of a wave of COVID-19 infections is high.

"It is impossible to maintain a safe distance, people do not have water to wash, much less sanitary material."

The first positive was detected in Moria this September and, according to the Greek authorities, before the fire they had already reported 35 infected.

The Migration Ministry said Friday that they had lost contact with the sick, who were being quarantined.

Journalists, United Nations officials and NGO volunteers are landing these days in droves in Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos.

Trucks, bulldozers and army convoys circulated along the Moria highway at night, dedicated to building a new temporary shelter camp.

The headlights of the vehicles illuminated families who approached journalists to ask for help or warn of the illness of someone close to whom no one can attend.

Syrians and mostly Afghans, also Pakistanis, Iraqis, Iranians and Congolese, formed clusters along the road, separated by their culture and origin, but sharing the darkness and uncertainty.

Tension is far from abating on Lesbos.

In the morning the police dispersed with tear gas a protest in which several hundred refugees asked for solutions to their situation.

Without enough food and water, they sleep in the open in fields and road shoulders.

And they are opposed to the construction of a new camp that the Hellenic Government is preparing.

"There is a lot of tension, the police are firing tear gas," said Clement, a Nigerian refugee, by phone,

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According to the Greek daily

the refugees threw stones and the riot police used the gas to disperse them.

Clement said that he did not see any stone throwing and that he did not understand why the police charged them as it was a "peaceful" protest.

"[The police] did not seem to care that there were children among the protesters, they have thrown a lot of gas," he said.

Several videos of journalists present at the march and of the refugees themselves circulated on social media, showing hundreds of people, many of them women and children, carrying signs that read: “We don't want to go to hell again like Moria ”.

In the same images it was seen how the police released the gas.

This fire has once again focused on the ineffective response of the European Union to the migratory challenge and the null capacity of its members to agree.

While a dozen countries, led by France and Germany, announced this week that they will take in 400 unaccompanied minors living in Moria, there are others such as Austria that have already announced that they are totally opposed to their relocation.

The Hellenic Government - despite the unrest of the residents of Lesbos - rejects any massive transfer outside the island, located just 24 kilometers from the Turkish coast.

On Friday, Margaritis Schinas, vice president of the European Commission, declared that the Community Executive will present its proposal for a new migration and asylum pact that must be "durable and effective."