Seventeen of the thirty-eight illegal immigrants who landed at a beach in the area of Plomari in Lesvos last week, have tested positive for coronavirus.
The announcement was made by the municipality of Mytilene.
The patients, who are symptomatic, will remain in isolation for two weeks in a special quarantine facility at the Kara Tepe camp which was set up to prevent a potential outbreak of the coronavirus at the island’s overcrowded reception centre near the village of Moria. In two weeks, they will be tested again.
Last week, Alternate Migration & Asylum Minister Giorgos Koumoutsakos, paid a visit to the asylum seekers’ accommodation facilities in Lesvos with the Minister-President of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia Armin Laschet.
There, Koumoutsakos said that the challenge of the migration crisis as both a humanitarian and a security issue “is so great that is surpasses Greece,” and needs Europe’s solidarity.
Greece has seen fewer migrants and refugees arriving from Turkey due to increased border checks and the coronavirus pandemic, but Turkey is “a difficult and unpredictable neighbour that controls a pool of four million migrants and refugees,” Koumoutsakos told Reuters.
Illegal migratory flows to the Greek islands is down 83% compared to 2019. Tens of thousands of refugees and migrants, including thousands of unaccompanied children, are living in squalid conditions in overcrowded camps on several Greek islands after arriving from the nearby Turkish coast.
