Greece has quarantined a migrant camp near Athens after residents tested positive. The EU is now warning of a spread to other overcrowded Greek island camps. Greece’s Migration and Asylum Ministry placed the Ritsona camp near Athens under quarantine for two weeks on Thursday after 21 of its residents tested positive for the coronavirus. The first case was a mother who gave birth last week. Her infection, identified in an Athens hospital, 75 kilometers (47 miles) away, is the first recorded case at the overcrowded camps across Greece.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johannson told DW that the European Commission was “working very hard now to set up an emergency response action plan together with Greek authorities.” EU commissioner Johansson: ‘Evacuate the most vulnerable out of these camps’ . Now in place, the aim was to evacuate “the most vulnerable people, sick people, out of the camps to safe areas like hotel rooms that are available right now,” said Johannson. Medical staff and equipment were being made available for Greek authorities and bodies such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UNHCR refugee agencies, she told DW.
Access to Ritsona had been restricted, according to Greek authorities, who added that extra medical staff and food would be sent to people in the camp. As yet staff in the camps has not been infected. Greece currently has some 100,000 asylum-seekers, including 40,000 at island camps. The country is seen as a “gateway to Europe” for people fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and beyond. Constantinos Moutzouris, governor of three Aegean islands, said the “immediate removal” of camp residents was imperative to avert potential viral spread. Johannson said Brussels was liaising with Greece and UN organizations to relieve pressure “by relocating people out of these camps and also to return people.”
Source: DW
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