Greece faces 'titanic' struggle to shelter 12,000 after fire rips through migrant camp on Lesbos

Germany has offered to take in 1,000 refugees left homeless by a devastating fire in a migrant camp on the island of Lesbos as Greece said it faced a “titanic” struggle to shelter people and track down dozens infected with coronavirus.

The fire, fanned by strong winds, destroyed around 90 per cent of the notoriously squalid and overcrowded Moria camp in what was described by witnesses as “a night of hell”.

The blaze destroyed not only the official, fenced migrant camp but also swept through hundreds of tents and makeshift plywood shelters inhabited by migrants in the olive groves that surround the facility.

Fire struck again on Wednesday night, inside the parts of Moria camp that had not been burnt in the first blaze.

Later, about 4,000 migrants who had left the camp for the island's main port of Mytilini to board ships for the mainland threw stones at police blocking the road, and officers responded with tear gas, police said.

There were no reports of injuries or arrests. Police said migrants also lit fires in fields near the site of the clashes.

“The entire camp was engulfed in flames, the sky turned orange and there was a mass exodus of frightened people. It was an image of an apocalyptic, burning hell,” Faris Al Jawad from the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres told The Telegraph from Lesbos.

“It’s a ghostly environment of charred tents.”

The camp has an official capacity of fewer than 3,000 people but for months has been crammed with around 12,000, including 4,000 children.

They were left to sleep out on the street or in fields around the smouldering facility.

Greek authorities now face a “titanic” struggle to find alternative shelter for the migrants and locate dozens who have tested positive for Covid-19, said Stelios Petsas, the government spokesman.

The first case was detected last week and the virus has since spread.

"There are 35 positive cases and they need to be isolated ... to prevent an outbreak among the local population," he said.

Greek police prevented migrants from fleeing towards the nearby town of Mytilene for fear that they would spread the virus to the local population.

Germany is prepared to take in up to 1,000 of the refugees, Armin Laschet, one of the main contenders to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor next year, announced.

“If you now imagine that nobody has a roof over their heads at night, that 12,000 people, families, children are now living without any protection, then it is clear that help from Europe is needed now,” Mr Laschet said.

As regional leader of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, Mr Laschet did not wait for approval from Mrs Merkel’s government but announced unilaterally that his region would take the refugees in.

His initiative may have been prompted by his own visit to Moria last month. He was favourite to become the next leader of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrat party, but has slipped back in the running amid widespread criticism of his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, said that what happened at Moria was a “humanitarian catastrophe. With the European Commission and EU member states, we need to clarify as quickly as possible how we can support Greece. This also involves other willing EU countries taking migrants in.”

Humanitarian organisations said the camp was a “time bomb” that had been waiting to explode for years because of overcrowding and frustration with the slow asylum process.

“It was like hell. The wind was crazy, it spread the fire quickly,” Abdulhadi Shahud, a medical coordinator for the charity Kitrinos Healthcare, told The Telegraph.

The charity’s clinic inside the camp was badly damaged. “We lost almost all our equipment,” said Mr Shahud, a Syrian who has been working in the camp for more than two years. “I would say 90 per cent of the camp has been destroyed. Moria as a camp is finished.”

There were conflicting accounts of how the fire started, with claims that migrants themselves had started it to protest coronavirus quarantine conditions.

"It was premeditated. The tents were empty," Michalis Fratzeskos, a local official said.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the prime minister, said: “I recognise the difficult circumstances. However, nothing can become an excuse for violent reaction to health checks. And, more so, for unrest of this extent.”

Konstantinos Theofilopoulos, a senior fire service officer, said the fire started in more than three places in quick succession.

Humanitarian groups called on the Greek government to move the refugees and migrants off Lesbos as quickly as possible.

“There is only one solution – get them to safe, humane accommodation, either in Greece or in other EU countries. There needs to be a real plan of evacuating people from the island,” said Mr Al Jawad from MSF.

“We just hope they are not shifted from one deplorable context to another – conditions are often as bad on the mainland.”

There were no known fatalities from the fire, although many people were treated for smoke inhalation.

The Greek government has been trying for months to build a new camp on Lesbos to replace Moria but has come up against fierce local opposition, with islanders clashing with riot police.