At least 4,000 people were evacuated from the Moira refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos Monday after a fire destroyed many make-shift homes.
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Social media images showed huge flames.
Earlier on Monday, tension rose in Moria owing to a rumour that migrants were about to be deported en masse to Turkey, state agency ANA reported.
Police were investigating the possibility that it may have been started by migrants.
Volunteers at the Moria refugee camp have confirmed that around 4,000 people have been evacuated. On Lesbos, the damage was “extensive, tents and containers burned down” and almost everyone, among them unaccompanied children, had evacuated the site, the police official said on condition of anonymity.
“There is a big fire at the hot spot [migrant camp]”.
Greece is struggling to reduce overcrowding at migrant camps on its islands, even though the flow of people is less than past year, and the slow processing of asylum requests is adding to frustrations that sometimes spark violence among residents.
The situation is particularly dire on Lesbos and other eastern Aegean islands facing Turkey, where most of the migrants land and are held for registration.
The procedure is part of the EU-Turkey deal brokered in March, in which the EU pledged to work towards visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to Europe’s Schengen zone in exchange for Ankara’s assistance in curbing migrants crossing to the Greek islands.
According to Greek government data, there are over 13,000 people on five islands in facilities built to house fewer than 8,000.
On Lesbos itself there are more than 5,600 people, over 2,000 more than the nominal capacity of the camps.
The rally staged by the locals was demanding that the authorities clear the camp and deport the migrants.
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But a strong police presence at the camp had initially calmed tempers, the officer said.
