Last modified on Thu 20 Feb 2020 10.33 GMT. During my time there, one of our most calm, loyal, and impressive translators was arrested after a second rejection and deported without papers, and without a lawyer. Before the devastating fires, conditions at the camp were already extremely dire. The world continues to turn its back. Initially built for 2,200 people, the camp has hosted almost ten times the amount of people it … Further fires left the camp almost completely destroyed. This was my third time there – and my most shocking. The Moria camp was initially designed to house 3000 migrants. Navalny 'losing sensation in legs and hands', Jabs 'breaking link' between UK cases and deaths. But a group of charities and NGOs have written to the German government saying more has to be done for all of the migrants, not just those minors. (Photo by Manolis ... the situation is even worse. Rose is breastfeeding her baby, born last August while living in the chaos of the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. We know he will not be safe back in Afghanistan. As the military begins constructing new tents on Lesbos, Greece has also sent three ships to provide accommodation for some 2,000 migrants. I can’t comprehend it. What happens to your body in extreme heat? At the scene. A translator looks at the large queue of refugees through the door of the clinic before triage. Meanwhile the Moria camp has all the needed ingredients for an outbreak: feeble hygiene, people with poor nutrition and compromised immune systems shoehorned into tight spaces, and a virus that behaves uncontrollably making its way around the world. "We don't want another camp, and we will oppose any construction work," local leader Vangelis Violatzis was quoted as saying. It has become a place of violence, deprivation, suffering and despair. This once again brought to the forefront of people’s minds, the desperate situation of many people fleeing their native countries and seeking asylum abroad. Even those of us with contacts in other NGOs and with lawyers cannot work it out. Our clinic runs on the grid, regularly tripping out, and we carry out our consultations by the glow of head torches and battery-operated lights. There's little running water, and washing is difficult. People from 70 countries had been sheltered there, most from Afghanistan. Moria is within a former military base surrounded by olive groves. Families have been sleeping in fields and on roads after fleeing the blaze on Wednesday, as authorities struggle to find accommodation for them. Fires broke out in more than three places overnight on Tuesday, according to local fire chief Konstantinos Theofilopoulos. They come with the infamous “Moria flu” and a whole range of chronic problems one would normally expect in a population of this size. At the end of our clinic time, the responsibility for the medical care of patients in the camp is down to a lone “army doctor”, who cannot be accessed by patients unless the police deem them to have a serious enough medical problem. He has also said that the Commission's proposals for a new pact on migration and asylum, due to be presented on 30 September, will "put an end to this unacceptable situation". Thousands of asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesvos fled for their lives as a huge fire ripped through the camp of Moria, the country’s largest migrant facility. The suffering is palpable, the hopelessness is insidious, the feeling of abandonment is all-consuming. Because there is no electricity in the camp, the darkness outside is engulfing. But the Greek army has already begun setting up replacement accommodation. We are busy today, as we are every day; there are a lot of people to see. eople queue outside the wire-fenced cabin for hours before the clinic opens at four, hoping to be able to speak to a doctor about their child’s rash, their pregnancy-related abdominal pains, their hallucinations and flashbacks from witnessed violence, their sleep disturbance, their itch from having to wear nappies at night for fear of having to go to the toilet in the pitch-black camp. Moria refugee camp is at breaking point; the situation is about to implode. We had gone through some team pre-hospital trauma care earlier in the week and have had daily exposure to stabbings by now, so we get to work putting in lines and assessing each patient. We give him intramuscular ceftriaxone antibiotic and request a taxi to take him to hospital. After a fire destroyed that camp, the two women were repatriated to the Kara Tepe camp, along with more than 6,000 other people. Moria is the largest of five centres on Greece’s Aegean islands and has become a symbol of Europe’s response to the arrival of asylum seekers and migrants on boats from nearby Turkey. We decide to decompress that side of his chest with a cut to his chest wall. Italy and Greece have accused wealthier northern countries of failing to do more, while a number of central and eastern nations are openly resistant to the idea of taking in a quota of migrants. "There is no food, no milk for the baby," Congolese migrant Natzy Malala, who had a newborn infant and an eight-year-old girl, told Reuters news agency. People queue in the dark from 6:30 to try to get help. “Covid-19 has reached almost every corner of this planet, so I can’t imagine why it shouldn’t hit Moria,” said Dr. van de Vijver. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. As more and more countries are going into quarantine to slow down the spread of the coronavirus, there is one place on the planet where the situation could well become even more catastrophic than in the rest of the world: the Moria refugees camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, off the Turkish coast. “The situation in Moria cannot continue because it is a matter of public health, humanity and national security at the same time,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement. "The safety and shelter of all people in Moria is a priority," she tweeted. The Moria camp is a 10-minute drive from the port of Mitilini, the largest city on Lesbos. There is also strong resistance from locals for a new camp to house them. As far as I’m aware, all of these patients are still alive. Geneva Palais briefing note on situation for children affected by fire at Moria camp in Lesvos, and UNICEF response ... Thousands of asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesvos fled for their lives as a huge fire ripped through the camp of Moria, the country's largest migrant facility. We keep going. Many local Greeks too want the migrants to leave the island. Moria refugee camp, the largest in Europe, went up in flames earlier this month. More than 4 years ago Pope Francis visited Moria camp. This will happen inwardly, harming some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Any chronic problems are advised to come back to doctors working in the daytime: this clinic is for acute care only, for emergencies only. He was seen to be shouting and screaming and then collapsed, breathing very heavily and not waking up. How do you weigh up the risks of the AZ vaccine? I kept a diary of the cases I saw, thinking it would be cathartic after the chaos to read through one or two major incidents, for personal processing purposes. And when we send them back to their tents, I feel ashamed. I call all five doctors and the emergency nurse to the cabin and we split into teams, with two translators at each bedside. I continue, with the help of my translator, to see patients in the “yellow” queue, mostly children with fevers, adults with abdominal pain, pregnant women, minors with scabies. The fire at Moria was "a sharp reminder to all of us for what we need to change in Europe", the interior minister said. I want to tell you about one day in the life of the little portable cabin clinic where I worked. Migrants from the burnt-out Moria camp are staging a protest in front of the police barriers which prevent them from moving to other parts of the island. Apparently they went to a neighbour’s tent where a fire was lit for warmth after sundown, and have been exposed to carbon monoxide for a sustained period of time. The clinic has two rooms, split into four consultation areas. We have still not been able to contact him. I am the narrator of the stories of the people still there; this is not about me. This time two young men from the sections for unaccompanied minors are dragged in between friends, gasping and covered in blood. The implosion will probably cause a tiny ripple of outward explosion, and then be forgotten. UNHCR head in Greece speaks at emergency site. They have started responding by the time they are in the ambulance, and we know they will be OK. “ The EU and Greek response following the Moria fire has been pitiful. Are pay-by-the-minute booths the future of work? Refugees and migrants in the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos March 2020. The island's residents also oppose the reconstruction of the camp and have blocked roads to stop aid deliveries. Little did I know how much the events from just one day would catch in my throat on re-reading. The tension is released, for now. The names of patients to be seen are written on a whiteboard in order of priority and we call them inside one by one. People from 70 countries had been sheltered there, most from Afghanistan. As far as I’m aware, all of these patients are still alive. What are you still seeing? The next day we had a 16-year-old boy, again from the supposedly protected sections, fall through the back doors of the clinic with a knife still in his back. As I go to inflate the blood pressure cuff, he opens his eyes and screams – a long, sustained scream, followed by extreme hyperventilation and rigidity in his arms. We start oxygen from our transported cylinders on the children who are not responding, wrap them in emergency blankets, and call the ambulance, while checking over the others. “Green” patients need urgent care; “yellow” patients are severely unwell with abnormal vital signs and require a full examination on a bed; “red” emergency patients usually suffer from major panic attacks, extreme pain, collapses and, increasingly, life-threatening stab wounds or the results of other violence. One person carried a large piece of cardboard emblazoned with the message: "We don't want food, we want freedom." On a car park outside a supermarket on Thursday, hundreds of migrants, including families with small children, waited for bottled water and food to be distributed. Unless there is a life-threatening emergency, they will wait until the day clinic opens at nine. The Moria camp has a capacity of 3,000 but is now overcrowded with over 20,000 people living there. The question of how to deal with the mass arrivals of migrants, mainly to Italy and Greece, has divided the EU for years. Here are their stories. This is daily. There, he has been supporting a local initiative called "Stand By Me Lesvos“. The mother is crying and the father looks ashen-faced as he explains through the Farsi translator that they are worried as the child won’t drink and looks tired. Daniel: Hello Thomas! Almost 13,000 people had been living in squalor in the overcrowded Moria camp and are desperate to leave the island. I call the febrile child in. We work together with our translators (refugees living in the camp themselves, volunteering daily in return for bus tickets, phone credit, education and dinner as they are not able to stand in the food queue while working with us) from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Somalia and the Congo. It has not come. We switch the oxygen tank to him, while stabilising the other boy’s bleeding, and plan how to extricate both on stretchers from the tiny clinic room. He did not say, however, that the fires were a deliberate act of arson aimed at destroying the camp. Read about our approach to external linking. This child is persistently hot and lethargic, and has a concerning rash. Images of Moria refugee camp taken in July 2017 and January 2020 illustrate the population explosion. With finite space and an infinite number of increasingly vulnerable people arriving, many minors and women are living alone outside the sections, at risk of abuse, violence, and systemic failings. Most of them have made a treacherous journey to come to this unsafe place; 40% of them are children. New footage from Lesvos emergency site and Moria camp. Moria Corona Awareness Team. BRF doctors from the Netherlands and Belgium – Mirjam Wubs, Lisanne Schreuder Goedheijt with translator Nourullah Ishaqzi, Lucie Blondé, and Mariëtte de Reeper – work in the “green” area. Eight women live in one of 18 small basic rooms under a large tent, nicknamed "the women's camp." I have not done a special job here. Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said the fires "began with the asylum seekers because of the quarantine imposed". Myanmar ambassador to UK 'locked out' of embassy. Singing and banging plastic bottles, they march up and down a stretch of coastal road, calling for the right to leave Lesbos. Doctor Annie Chapman at work in the ‘yellow’ area of the clinic. On Friday, migrants and refugees approached police barriers blocking the road out of Moria camp, holding signs calling for "freedom" and opposing the construction of a new camp. The new camp is home to about 10,000. Talks are ongoing with other states to take part, Mr Seehofer said. The fires started hours after reports that 35 people had tested positive for Covid-19 at the camp. It works for a few minutes, then fills with blood again. Life has become a ''living hell'' for refugees and asylum-seekers at the Moria reception centre on the Greek island of Lesvos, a space designed for 2,200 people but now hosting place hosting over 18,000. Read about our approach to external linking. Hell on earth — Greece's Moria refugee camp and its tortured history Life threatening. The majority of doctors are not used to dealing with acute stabbings: BRF has not actively recruited for emergency doctors previously, as we were offering more clinic-based urgent care. After a week in which riot squads clashed with crowds of migrants, one medic gives a harrowing account of life volunteering in Greece’s infamous holding facility, Children in the olive grove area. Rather than relocating asylum seekers to proper shelters where they would be safe, the EU and Greece have opted for another dismal camp at the external borders, trapping people in a spiral of destitution and misery. India ignores Covid surge to hold IPL cricket tournament, Covid-19: The disinformation tactics used by China. 7K … We do not know where he is and we do not know the details of his rejection. We assessed and stabilised them all and got them to hospital. The Netherlands has already pledged to accept 50 and Finland will take 11. A boy plays with a scooter in front of rubbish bags in area outside camp Moria. Kyaw Zwar Minn spends the night in his car after saying the military attaché "occupied" the embassy. We now have only one oxygen tank as we used the other on the children with carbon monoxide poisoning. The Moria refugee camp is the largest refugee camp in Greece located on the island of Lesbos. By Bethany Bell, BBC News, Lesbos. I am a doctor from London and I have just spent three weeks working for the Boat Refugee Foundation (BRF). We are a team from across the world – when I was on Lesbos there was a mix of Dutch, French, English, American and Spanish doctors, nurses and support crew. VideoCovid-19: The disinformation tactics used by China, Call My Agent star joins plea to reopen French theatres, 'I can't change my gender unless I'm sterilised' Video'I can't change my gender unless I'm sterilised', A shrinking river sparks a fight for water access, ‘Please don’t lend Kenya more money’. There has been no electricity in the camp now for two and a half months. One of his lungs is filling up with air and blood where he has been stabbed. All 400 children have now been flown to the Greek mainland.