A police source said there was “no doubt” the fire that ripped through the facility had been started by a number of migrants who lived there.
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He said there was “no doubt” that the fire had been set on objective by those inside.
Moria was built to house 1500 people but is vastly overcrowded.
“If today we don’t undertake coordinated action and do not replace illegal trafficking routes with legal ones, and do not proceed to resettle refugees in other countries, we will have failed”, he told the General Assembly, attended by heads of state and governments to discuss the large movements of refugees and migrants in a bid to organize a coordinated global response to the refugee crisis.
Turkish coast guard statistics show 1,603 migrants attempted to reach the Greek islands in August, almost twice as many as in July. These centres started out as temporary reception areas for new arrivals, but since a deal between the European Union and Turkey came into force in March, new arrivals have been housed in the centres until their asylum applications are assessed. However, police intercepted the refugees and sent them back to the camp. “I heard the policemen talking to each other, calling us dogs, saying that the “animals are getting food so we need to watch them”.
Frontex said it was the “first noticeable monthly increase” since the EU-Turkey migrant deal came into effect. At the height of the migrant crisis past year more than 7,000 people a day were landing on its shores.
On Lesbos itself there are more than 5,600 people, over 2,000 more than the nominal capacity of the camps.
Many on the island are afraid of being returned to Turkey or their home countries, correspondents say.
Reports indicate that earlier the migrants discovered they might be deported to Turkey, leading some 300 of them to stage their own rally in protest.
But a strong police presence at the camp had initially calmed tempers, the officer said.
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Apart from the blaze inside the camp, two more fires were discovered among the olive trees near Moria, but firefighters managed to extinguish them swiftly.
