Press. voanews.com.
About 300
migrants have been arrested following a riot in Bulgaria's largest refugee
camp, as Greece calls on European Union member states to speed relocation
efforts after a tragic accident killed two migrants in an overcrowded Lesbos
camp. Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov told BNR public radio early
Friday that about "300 migrants, six of them considered a threat to
national security, have been arrested." Borisov spoke to reporters after
visiting the camp.
Bulgarian
officials said between 1,500 and 2,000 migrants were involved in the clashes on
Thursday at the Harmanli migrant reception center, near the border with Turkey.
The crowd, primarily made up of refugees from Afghanistan, allegedly set car
tires alight and hurled stones at more than 200 police and firefighters to
protest a newly imposed rule banning migrants from leaving the center after an
alleged outbreak of infectious disease.
Nearly 30
police officers and about two dozen migrants were injured in the unrest, the
French news agency AFP reported. Tensions have run high in the area, with local
residents demanding that the refugee camp be closed. Migrants fleeing violence
in the Middle East have made their way into the Balkan country despite the
fence Sofia erected along the Turkish border amid the worst migration crisis to
hit Europe since 1945. About 13,000 migrants, most of them from Afghanistan,
are currently in Bulgaria, according to official statistics.
'Shocked'
by camp fire
In
Greece, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he was "shocked, as is the
entire Greek nation," after a fire broke out in a tent overnight at the
Moria camp on the island of Lesbos. Two people — a young boy and an older woman
— were killed, and two others were injured and were in serious condition at a
hospital.
Human
rights groups condemned the deaths, blaming the migrants' living conditions on
the lack of action by countries in Europe. Despite the overcrowding at camps in
Greece, EU member states have taken less than 4 percent of the migrants they
committed to taking, according to EU figures.
"How
many more people need to die in a tent, trying to keep warm, before EU and
Greek authorities take action?" asked Loic Jaeger, head of mission in
Greece for the relief agency Doctors Without Borders, or MSF. "The
fire in Moria is more than an accident. It is a direct consequence of the
deplorable living conditions that Greek and EU authorities force refugees to
live in inside Moria camp and other places across Greece," Jaeger said.
Moria is
one of five Greek island camps sheltering refugees and migrants listed for deportation
back to Turkey. Under a deal struck between the EU and Ankara in March,
migrants and refugees who arrived in Greece after March 20 are to be returned
to Turkey. However,
that process can take months. More than 62,000 migrants and refugees are stranded
in Greece, according to government figures. RFE/RL contributed to this report.
Some material for this report came from AP, AFP and dpa.