Two dead in Greek migrant camp fire

A mother and child died in a fire started by rioting migrants at the identification and reception center of Moria on the southeastern Aegean island of Lesvos on Sunday, the state-run Athens-Macedonian News Agency has reported.

According to the ANA-MPA, the burnt body of a woman was taken to the island’s general hospital for identification on Sunday night, while police were trying to reach a burnt housing container to retrieve the second body, reportedly belonging to a child.

“We learned with deep sadness that the lives of a woman and a child were lost in a fire on Lesvos today,” the Greek branch of the UNHCR refugee agency, which is active on Lesvos, tweeted on Sunday.

The fire inside the camp started shortly after 5 pm, about 20 minutes after another blaze was set off in an olive grove just outside the facility where hundreds of asylum seekers who cannot be accommodated inside the overcrowded camp are living in tents and other makeshift shelters.

The first fire was contained quickly but the second continued to burn for some time after firefighters reportedly came under attack by a group of migrants angered at the dire living conditions at the camp and delays in transfers to the mainland.

The disgruntled migrants also clashed with riot police dispatched to the scene.

More than 12,000 people live in the Moria camp, which was built for a quarter of that number.