Greece vowed to reduce overcrowding at camps for asylum-seekers on its Aegean islands, after a deadly fire on Sunday highlighted the country’s growing struggle to cope with refugees and other migrants trying to reach Europe.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s new conservative government promised to speed up decisions on who gets asylum, return more rejected applicants and move some asylum-seekers to the Greek mainland from islands such as Lesbos where overflowing refugee camps are causing mounting unrest.
A rising number of people crossing from the coast of Turkey to nearby Greek islands in recent weeks has increased the strains at already-overflowing refugee camps. Around 29,000 refugees and other migrants are currently living in camps designed for about one-third as many people.
At the Moria camp on Lesbos, which is particularly notorious for its unsanitary conditions, violence and other problems, at least one person died on Sunday when metal containers housing asylum-seekers caught fire. Many other people were injured. Other migrants, protesting that firefighters were too slow in arriving, then fought with Greek riot police. It was only the latest unrest to grip Moria.
More than 45,000 asylum-seekers have entered Greece so far this year, mostly by sea, accounting for more than half of the 77,000 refugees and other migrants who have crossed into Europe from the Middle East and North Africa so far this year. Over 1,000 have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean so far this year, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency.
Over 12,000 people have arrived in Greece in September alone, a sharp increase from the number of monthly arrivals over the last three years. The Syrian regime’s military pressure on the remaining rebel-held territories there, and a crackdown on illegal immigration in Turkey, are thought to have contributed to the increased attempts to cross the Aegean.
Still, the number of people crossing into Greece and other Southern European countries remains far lower than in 2015-16, when over one million people sought refuge in Europe, mostly entering via Greece. That inflow sparked political backlashes that continue to reverberate in Germany and many other European countries, boosting far-right nativist parties and weakening Europe’s political establishment.
Most of Greece’s recent arrivals are Afghans and Syrians fleeing conflict in their countries, according to the International Organization for Migration. Greece’s government, however, says that many other arrivals come from safe countries and have no justified asylum claim.
The government said on Monday it would reject unfounded claims faster and put failed claimants in separate facilities for deportation, as one way to relieve pressure on refugee camps such as Moria.
Greece’s decision to transfer some migrants off the islands to camps on the European mainland could mark a partial retreat from a much-criticized policy of keeping migrants bottled up on Lesbos and other islands while their asylum claims are being considered.
Greece, under pressure from the European Union, agreed to keep migrants on the islands as part of an EU deal with Turkey in 2016, under which many of the migrants were meant to be returned to Turkey. Under the deal, the EU promised Turkey billions of euros to help manage its large number of Syrian refugees, and to take some Syrians off Turkey’s hands.
In practice, few people have been returned from Greece to Turkey, while continuous sea crossings have led to overcrowding on the islands. Critics including nongovernmental organizations have accused the EU and Greece of allowing the squalid conditions on the island camps to fester in order to deter more migrants from coming. Greece and the EU deny that, with each often blaming the other for the poor conditions in the camps.
Write to Marcus Walker at marcus.walker@wsj.com