UNHCR calls for action after migrant camp floods

A month after fire razed the sprawling Moria reception center on the Aegean island of Lesvos, the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has called for “urgent action” after heavy rain flooded tents at a new facility set up to replace the camp.

“Urgent action and improvements are needed to avoid further deterioration of living conditions for some 7,800 refugees and asylum-seekers currently sheltered in the emergency site in Kara Tepe,” the UNHCR said in a statement on Friday.

It said some “interim solutions” were found in the wake of the flooding caused by Thursday’s rainfall but warned that, “colder weather and the onset of winter will only bring more hardship for the people there.” 

Migration Minister Notis Mitarakis said that the majority of the facility had not been affected by the flooding and that those migrants whose tents were flooded were temporarily moved to “common areas.”