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| - Greece's migration minister on Saturday defended safety conditions at a camp where a young child was raped this week, insisting it was a massive improvement on one that burned down in September. "The facility is in very good condition as regards safety and order," Notis Mitarachi told reporters granted rare access to Kara Tepe camp on the island of Lesbos. "It's nothing like Moria," the minister said, referring to the notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary camp that was destroyed by a fire blamed on arson. "You did not have this sense of security, it was a jungle," he told AFP, pointing to a dedicated police force of 300. The 32-hectare (79-acre) Kara Tepe camp has 850 tents hosting over 7,000 people. The camp flooded this week, and a three-year-old Afghan girl was found semi-conscious and bleeding in the camp lavatory on Monday, with authorities saying she was raped. She was hospitalised and required stitches, local medical staff said. No-one has been arrested in connection to the incident. The investigation is ongoing. Mitarachi insisted the Kara Tepe camp, built under "emergency conditions" to house thousands left homeless, is temporary. It will be replaced in 2021 by a new, permanent camp for up to 5,000 people created with EU assistance, he said. "We are employing drainage works to deal with problems that understandably occurred in the first weeks of operation," he said. "I believe that as of early 2021 these problems will be permanently dealt with," the minister added. More than 17,000 people live in camps and other facilities on Greek islands, according to government data. Only a few thousand refugees have been allowed to relocate to other EU states this year, despite repeated requests by Athens and the European Commission. These include around 1,300 ailing or unaccompanied minors. str-jph/har
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