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| - Aided by a Farsi-speaking translator, Greek asylum staffer Michalis patiently explains to a group of Afghan asylum seekers that a new tent camp awaits them on the island of Lesbos, days after the Moria facility was destroyed by fire. "You cannot stay on the street. It's dangerous, and I remind you that coronavirus is everywhere," says the staffer, who declined to give his last name. Hesitant queues began forming Saturday afternoon at the main entrance of the new camp of Kara Tepe, with some migrants agreeing to enter to secure shelter and food. "We are four days on the road, without food and water. Since we are in Greece, we must obey the local authorities. We feel more safe in an organised place," 25-year-old Jacob Yong Deng from Sudan tells AFP. Around 60 migrants had checked in by late afternoon Saturday, police said, while dozens more -- mostly family groups -- were waiting outside for hygiene and safety checks. Some Afghans nearby shout at the queueing migrants, trying to dissuade them. Anybody entering is also frisked for flammable materials or cooking gas canisters, the police said. Over 11,000 people, 4,000 of them children, have been sleeping rough since the notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary Moria camp burned down this week. Officials have blamed migrants living in the camp for the fires that gutted it. The first blaze broke out shortly after 35 people tested positive for coronavirus and were facing isolation measures. Only eight of the 35 positive cases have since been located. On Saturday, a 20-day-old Afghan baby tested positive for coronavirus, Greek state news agency ANA reported. The baby and its mother, also positive, were expected to be flown to Athens. Most of the homeless migrants are from Afghanistan, with smaller populations from Syria, DR Congo and Iran. Lacking tents and even basic bedding, they have sought shelter wherever there is room -- on the side of the road, in parking lots and even inside a local cemetery. "This camp will be different than Moria. We promise you the asylum procedure will be faster. You will be able to leave the island quickly," Michalis says. "A temporary accommodation area with tents, running water, and supplies has been created for you and your children," the Greek asylum service tweeted on Saturday. Aided by army bulldozers, work crews have worked round-the-clock to erect a makeshift tent camp for 3,000 people a few kilometres from the ruins of Moria. Alexandros Ragavas, a spokesman for the migration ministry, says vulnerable asylum seekers will be the first to be housed. "We will give priority to families. It will be tents of six and the camp will be separated by ethnicities. The process of moving people will start today," he tells AFP. Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi had earlier said the asylum seekers would be tested on entry for Covid-19, and that a "special quarantine" area had been created near the camp for those testing positive. But many of the asylum-seekers are wary of being bottled up again after months of coronavirus lockdown, and fear a re-run of the ethnic gang crime and dismal sanitation standards that plagued Moria. "In Moria we could come and go but here, (the camp) will be like a prison", Zola, a Congolese mother of a 5-month-old tells AFP. Others say the location of the new camp on a hilltop overlooking the sea bodes ill for winter. "It's near the sea. How we will (manage in) winter, it will be so cold," asks Omar, an 18-year-old from Burkina Faso. "We will demonstrate again today. We don't want to be in a closed camp where there is no security and no liberty," says 21-year-old Afghan Mahdi Ahmadi. Hundreds of migrants earlier Saturday gathered near the site of the new camp, beating plastic bottles and shouting "No camp" at riot police, following up a Friday protest. Police fired tear gas after some of them began throwing stones. Lesbos residents are equally opposed to having a new camp in their midst. "It would be better not to have any new camp around here. Especially because of the coronavirus, we don't want them next to our homes," says a man who gave his name as Kostas, who lives near the entrance of the new camp. "People are exhausted with this situation, both refugees and locals," he adds. The local mission head of medical charity MSF also has doubts about the new camp. "Is this new camp going to be big enough and the conditions there decent? We don't know," Stephan Oberreit tells AFP. "The only solution is the evacuation of all the migrants to the mainland. This containment policy doesn't work any more," he adds. mr-str/kan/jph/tgb
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