LESBOS ISLAND: Greece ramped up efforts on Friday to build a new shelter for thousands of migrants left homeless by fires that destroyed the notorious Moria camp on Lesbos island this week, as entire families with small children continued to sleep rough on roadsides.

In a sign of growing frustration days after the blazes, hundreds staged a protest on the road between their charred camp and a town, carrying signs reading “we want freedom” and “we don’t want a new camp” as riot police shadowed them.

In the streets of the island’s main town, desperate families wandered aimlessly after spending a third night sleeping out in the open, on the sides of roads, in car parks or even at petrol stations.

“We’ve suffered here for three days,” Congolese asylum seeker Patricia Bob said on the side of a road, sitting on a piece of cardboard serving as her mattress.

“We are hungry and thirsty, we have no toilets or showers.”

The Greek military began helping to set up a replacement site on a hilltop army firing range near the burnt-down camp, but had to use helicopters to bypass roadblocks set up by locals opposed to re-housing the migrants on the island.

Some 11,500 asylum seekers including 2,200 women and 4,000 children are without adequate shelter, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, following the fires on Tuesday and Wednesday that gutted the Moria camp.

Over 70 per cent are Afghans.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis vowed to build a new facility on the island — but stressed that the EU had to take a more active role in running it.

“A new facility will be needed... it will be done... (but) the management model must be different,” Mitsotakis said after meeting European Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas in Athens.

“We will discuss the maximum European participation in this effort,” the PM said.

Eleven police vehicles — some stopping the migrants from reaching a nearby port — and water cannon boosted the heavy presence seen on the island since the devastating blazes.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2020