Greece confirms first coronavirus case in migrant camp
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Greece has confirmed the first case of coronavirus in a migrant camp on the mainland, as public health workers warn of a humanitarian disaster if the highly contagious disease takes hold in the overcrowded settlements.
On Tuesday, an asylum seeker who had been living in a camp outside Athens tested positive for the virus after giving birth at a clinic, the first recorded case among an estimated 60,000 refugees and migrants living in camps on the eastern Aegean Islands and remote areas of mainland Greece.
It is not clear where the woman contracted the virus.
Migrants describe a climate of fear as they live packed together with little water, sanitation or information about the coronavirus crisis that is raging across Europe.
“What hope do we have of defending ourselves from corona? ” said Ahmad, on the phone from a camp under lockdown in northern Greece. He shares his small living space with five other men, his cooking facilities with dozens of people, and his camp recently had no running water for 10 days.
Six people have also tested positive for coronavirus on the Greek island of Lesbos, home to the 20,000-strong Moria camp that activists say is particularly ill-equipped to handle an outbreak.
Residents have been ordered not to leave the camp, even to collect their monthly stipend in the nearby town as police step up patrols on the roads nearby.
“There are areas in the Lesbos camp […] where there is one water point for 1,300 people. There is one toilet for 167 people. And there is one shower for 200 people,” says Apostolos Veizis, head of mission in Greece for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors without Borders. “So when we call for people to stay home, this is the paradox: what home?”
Public health experts say the situation is not only a humanitarian failure, it risks undermining the fight against the pandemic in Europe.
“Either we include everyone in this strategy, or we strategically fail. Not including these populations is a recipe for failure for our whole society,” said Karl Blanchet, a public health professor and director of the Geneva-based Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action.
Human Rights Watch and MSF are calling for the immediate evacuation of overcrowded island camps. Sea Watch, a search and rescue group, has proposed that decommissioned cruise ships could house those who have been evacuated.
The European Commission says the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the migrant camps is “of concern to us and to the Greek authorities” and is seeking to speed up the transfer of people from Greek islands — which host some 41,000 in camps — to the mainland.
Athens has also announced measures to improve screening and limit groups or visitors, measures Mr Dr Veizis said would do little good given the already unhygienic, overcrowded conditions.
Meanwhile, despite coronavirus being spread by close human contact, other countries in south-east Europe have been accelerating moves to corral migrants into camps.
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Migrants have been forced into makeshift settlements in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Serbia some migrants said they had no access to disinfectants or gloves and that camps were under military guard. In some camps, those with a fever said they were left among the camp population while others were whisked into isolation. Some anxious residents wondered whether a coronavirus outbreak had begun.
“The scariest thing is we have no idea who might be sick and who isn’t,” said Mohammed, living in Serbia’s Sombor camp.
Many Balkan states appeared to be trying to push migrants across their borders and into Serbia, where the migrant population in its camps climbed from 5,000 to 8,000 in just a few weeks.
“They [other Balkan states] have taken note of Serbia’s relatively open stance and are pushing migrants into their territories as they try to get rid of migrants in this Covid-19 crisis period,” said Stefan Lehmeier, the deputy director of International Rescue Committee in Europe, “I’m not sure what governments intend to do — the migrants cannot make themselves disappear.”
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