Pages

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

The Guardian view on EU migration policy: past time it had one

The fire at the notorious Moria camp on Lesbos throws a spotlight on years of neglect, during which Europe has mostly looked the other way Despite the searing heat and the absence of a viable alternative, it was reported this week that some former occupants of the burnt-out Moria refugee camp on Lesbos were refusing to move to temporary tented accommodation elsewhere on the island. They fear that if they do so, they will just be forgotten about all over again. Who can blame them? For years the rest of Europe has known of the squalor, overcrowding and desperation at Moria and other detention camps on the Greek islands. The European Union has thrown some money in the direction of Athens and, to a shameful extent, left the Greek government to get on with it. At the end of last year, Greece was hosting around 200,000 migrants, the vast majority of whom had crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey. Yet during the past five years, a mere 15,000 arrivals have been relocated to other EU countries. Continue reading...


READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com