AT least two migrants died in a fire at a Greek refugee camp yesterday, with the blaze triggering riots by angry residents.

Athens News Agency, quoting police sources, said a woman and child died in the blaze at the overcrowded Moria camp on the island of Lesbos.

The body of the woman was taken to the island’s general hospital, while the remains of the child were handed over to authorities.

The fire at the camp was extinguished using an airplane. Police later fired tear gas to control a crowd angered by the time it had taken for authorities to act, said an AFP correspondent.

The death toll, however, is unclear, with an Afghan migrant saying three people died in the blaze that spread to six or seven containers used to house residents.

“We found two children completely charred and a woman dead. We gave the children covered in blankets to the fire brigade,” Fedouz, 15, told AFP.

The AFP correspondent saw two bodies, one surrounded by weeping family members.

In a statement, police said the riots occurred after two fires broke out – first outside, and then, inside the Moria camp, with a gap of 20 minutes.

Additional officers were sent from Athens in C-130 army airplanes in a bid to contain the situation, although local police sources said calm returned to the camp by 2300 GMT.

Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Lefteris Economou, along with the police chief and migration policy secretary-general, are due to visit the camp.

The Moria camp hosts about 13,000 people, but has facilities for just 3,000. It has become like a small town, with United Nations refugee agency tents for some 8,000 people sprawling into the olive fields of the nearby Moria village. Other migrants are housed in containers.

Greece hosts some 70,000 mostly Syrian refugees and migrants, who have fled their countries since 2015 and crossed over from neighbouring Turkey.

Under an agreement reached with the European Union in 2016, Turkey has made greater efforts to limit departures to the five Greek islands closest to its shores.

But, the number of arrivals has been steadily climbing in recent months, causing a dangerous burden on the camps on the islands that are at the forefront of the migrant influx.

The Greek government yesterday said it plans to discuss a new asylum draft law to deal with the fresh migrant crisis.

“In a cabinet meeting on Monday (today), we will discuss a draft law proposed by the Citizen Protection Ministry, which will update, in accordance with European standards, the asylum procedure,” said State Minister George Gerapetritis in an interview with Skai Tv. – AFP, September 30, 2019.