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Greece Tightens COVID Controls at Refugee Camp

Anthee Carassava

   ATHENS - The Netherlands is sending urgent medical supplies to Greece
   to help shield tens of thousands of migrants and refugees following a
   series of COVID-19 outbreaks in Greek refugee camps. The government in
   Athens is boosting controls there, but it is also tightening lockdown
   rules for migrants, stripping violators of asylum rights and slapping
   them with heavy fines.

   Throughout the COVID crisis, Greece has been a model paradigm ...
   flattening its curve of infections with aggressive measures and
   lockdowns enforced from the start.

   Now, though, days before the government in Athens moves to ease some of
   these controls, concerns mount over a sudden spike in cases in some of
   the scores of refugee camps scattered across the country.

   In the southern Peloponnese region alone, about 150 migrants have
   tested positive at a hotel and run-down resort that has been converted
   into a shelter to house about 500 migrants, mainly from Cameroon and
   the Democratic Republic of Congo.

   An aid worker and a member of the hotel's staff have also been found
   infected. None, though, have shown serious symptoms so far.

   Still, the outbreak at the hotel camp follows two others recorded in
   different migrant establishments this week. This, after migrants
   claimed they were being neglected and left uninformed throughout this
   health crisis, sparked protests, with demonstrators setting fire to a
   refugee camp on the island of Chios after a young Iraqi asylum seeker
   died from what appeared to the coronavirus.

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