The UN refugee agency says it will no longer transfer newly-arrived migrants on Lesbos to a camp on the island, after Greece began to confine them to the facility as part of the EU-Turkey deal.
The Moria camp, which was visited by Hollywood star and UN refugee agency envoy Angelina Jolie last week, has now been sealed and migrants transferred there are “not allowed to go out,” says a spokesman.
The UNHCR, which has a policy of not working in sealed camps, will scale back there and only monitor it to identify and assist the most vulnerable migrants, including unaccompanied minors.
Refugees and migrants on a rubber boat arrive at the northern Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey, in Mytilene, on February 23, 2016. (AFP/Aris Messinis)
Previously migrants at the camp were free to move around the island, despite a heavy police presence in the area.
Spokesman for the UN High Commissioner Refugee Agency Boris Cheshirkov says: “We have taken a principled decision to disengage from transportation operations from the shoreline and the port to the closed facility of Moria.”
He adds that the “majority” of migrants and refugees in Lesbos before Sunday “had left the island” to reception facilities on mainland Greece.
— AFP
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