- Title: Newly arrived migrants on Lesbos quarantined in fields
- Date: 5th April 2020
- Summary: LESBOS, GREECE (APRIL 5, 2020) (REUTERS) MIGRANTS IN A FIELD STANDING NEXT TO TENTS VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS COOKING ON WOOD FIRES IN THE OPEN IN THE FIELD NEXT TO THEIR TENTS MAN HOLDING A CHILD MIGRANTS WALKING AROUND TWO TENTS IN FIELD VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS COOKING IN POTS ON WOOD FIRES VARIOUS OF BOY SWINGING FROM A TREE ON A MAKESHIFT SWING MADE OF ROPES AND A CRATE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SAMUEL FROM UGANDA SAYING: "We are under quarantine by the Greek government and UNHCR. They came they tested everybody, and everybody was negative. Nevertheless we are to be quarantined for 14 days." MIGRANTS TENTS IN FIELD BELOW CLIFF, GULLEYS OF RAINWATER NEXT TO TENTS VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS STANDING AROUND A WOOD FIRE, A CLOTHESLINE STREWN ACROSS CLIFF ABOVE MAN HANGING CLOTHES ON CLOTHESLINE ON CLIFF MIGRANTS SITTING AROUND FIELD MAN POURING WATER INTO A POT NEXT TO A WOOD FIRE VARIOUS OF BOYS STANDING NEXT TO TENT (SOUNDBITE) (English) RINA FROM AFGHANISTAN, SHIELDING HER HEAD FROM FALLING RAIN, SAYING: "After five days I am here, and it's very big problem babies." VARIOUS OF MIGRANTS HUDDLED UNDER A SMALL BLANKET TO SHELTER FROM THE RAIN, AS THEY STAND IN THE FIELD AROUND FIRE
- Embargoed: 19th April 2020 20:10
- Keywords: Greece coronavirus field migrants quarantine
- Location: LESBOS, GREECE
- City: LESBOS, GREECE
- Country: Greece
- Topics: Health/Medicine
- Reuters ID: LVA001C87SND3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:More than one hundred migrants that have recently arrived on the island of Lesbos have been placed under preventive quarantine, a migration ministry official said on Sunday (April 5).
Groups of the migrants were seen on Sunday living in fields, cooking on open fires and sheltering in tents provided by aid agencies, north of the island near the points of their arrival.
The official said any new migrant arrivals to the islands will be held in quarantine for 14 days. The ministry is currently working with the municipality on Lesbos to find spaces to accommodate the newly arrived migrants for the period of the quarantine. The migrants will be able to apply for asylum, the official said, as a previous ban has been lifted. Once the quarantine period ends they will be moved to Moria camp.
There have not been any recent arrivals on the other islands, the official said.
In the last three months the government has moved more than 2,000 migrants from the islands to the mainland as part of a continuing effort to decongest the camps. It plans to close them altogether and leave smaller temporary reception centres in their place.
Moria camp on Lesbos island is the most overcrowded camp with close to 19,000, and the sanitary conditions in the camp have deteriorated.
On Sunday a second migrants camp on the mainland was placed under quarantine after a 53-year-old man tested positive for coronavirus.
The Afghan man was living with his family at the Malakasa camp some 30 kilometres north of Athens, which houses more than 1,700 people. He has been transferred to a hospital in Athens.
On Thursday, authorities quarantined the Ritsona migrants camp in central Greece, where 23 tested positive for the coronavirus, the first camp to be hit by the infection, which houses about 2,500 migrants.
More than 110,000 people currently live in migrant facilities across the country - 40,000 of them in overcrowded camps on five islands, where no case has been reported so far.
(Production: Vassilis Triandafyllou, Deborah Kyvrikosaios, Elias Marcou) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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