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| - Known as 'the jungle' to its hapless residents, the notorious camp of Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos was almost entirely destroyed by a huge fire early Wednesday, leaving over 12,000 asylum seekers homeless. Here are key things to know about Greece's largest and most controversial migrant facility: The camp opened in 2013 on the site of a disused army facility, and was originally designed as a processing centre and temporary detention area for a few hundred asylum seekers arriving at the time. Two years later, in the wake of the Syrian civil war, Lesbos and its 85,000 inhabitants saw more than 450,000 people pass through in the space of a year. With tall steel fences topped by barbed wire, Moria was the most secure facility available to local authorities as they desperately tried to manage the soaring influx. But as other European states responded by shutting their borders, the bottleneck grew, worst of all on Lesbos, which handled most of the ongoing arrivals. The camp population gradually grew to around 20,000. By that point, it had already spilled out of container houses and into the Moria olive groves on nearby hills. With sanitation and safety overstretched even inside the camp walls, it was labelled a disgrace to European values by many NGOs. Prostitution, sexual assault, disappearances of minors, drug trafficking and fights occurred almost daily in the camp, where dozens of people have been stabbed, burnt to death in their tents or have committed suicide. From January to the end of August, five people were stabbed in more than 15 attacks. As the plight of the refugees made headlines worldwide, leaders and celebrities took note. In 2016, Pope Francis arrived with Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, mixing with the migrants and holding a mass to bless the thousands who had died trying to reach Europe. Angelina Jolie, Queen Rania of Jordan, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Game of Thrones stars Lena Headey, Liam Cunningham and Maisie Williams were also among those who came to Lesbos to witness the situation. In the early days and weeks of the 2015 migration crisis, Lesbos was the island of solidarity, a welcoming refuge where fishermen came to the aid of drifting boats loaded with migrants, and grandmothers who bottle-fed migrant babies were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But the mood changed, as more and more asylum seekers became trapped on the island with no end in sight. Fed up with shouldering the burden of Europe's dysfunctional asylum system, locals eventually began protesting against the presence of the migrants on their shores, saying they threatened safety, public health and a tourism-dependent economy. The conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that came to power in 2019 has for months been attempting to build a new camp on Lesbos to replace Moria. But Lesbos locals have resisted the move, clashing in February with riot police earlier this year to prevent construction from going ahead. The violence spiked in March, after additional asylum seekers arrived in a surge encouraged by Turkey. Local hardliners attacked newly-arrived migrants, intimidating media and targeting aid workers. Several aid groups were forced to suspend work with refugees and evacuate staff in the wake of the violence. jph/wdb
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