Moria: Refugees, migrants reluctant to get on ship board or move to hotels

Refugees and migrants at the hot spot of Moria seem reluctant to be provisionally hosted on bord of the Greek Navy ship deployed for his purpose or to move to hotels leased by the UN Refugees Agency UNHCR.

So far, only 61 migrants, all males, have accepted the offer and went on board of “Lesvos”, the Greek Navy ship deployed to host refugees and migrants from the hot spot of Moria.

The ship was deployed on Tuesday and was docked at the port of Lesvos Wednesday noon, after pictures and footage material exposed the inhuman living conditions of thousands men, women, children and elderly in summer tents amidst the worst snow fall in the last decades.

The ship is fully equipped to host 500 people.

Greek media and websites had initially reported that the refugees and migrants  refused to go on board fearing they would be transferred back to Turkey. The people is Moria are refugees and migrants who arrived to Greece after the EU Turkey Deal went into effect on March 20th 2016.

Later it was said that some who went on board of “Lesvos” returned to Moria as due to navy regulations they wouldn’t be allowed to go out or return whenever they wanted to.

On Friday, Athens News Agency reported that the people’s reluctance has to do with their fear they may get into trouble with their asylum procedure if they don;t live in Moria. In the same report of ANA, there is blame also on so-called “community leaders”, refugees and migrants who have been appointed as leaders of ethnic communities by various organizations and NGOs involved in the camp management and who have allegedly created their own internal power centers.

Citing sources from the Greek Migration Ministry, ANA reports that they spread rumors aiming to hinder the relocation to the ship or to leased hotels.

There are currently 400 beds available for refugees and migrants families in hotel and rooms to rent facilities leased by the UNHCR. Only just over 200 people have moved in from Moria. alone yesterday 15 of them.

Refugees and immigrants are reluctant also to move to the ‘shelters’ when they realize that they are a couple of kilometers away from the hot spot. They fear there could be delays in their asylum procedure. 25 people reportedly returned to Moria on Thursday when they realized the leased facilities were 10 km away.

A great role to the refugees and migrants reluctance to move to safe places is certainly the weather improvement without fresh snow falls and but milder temperature and sunshine.