(Greece) Stone-throwing refugees clashed with police at the Moria
detention centre on the Greek island of Lesbos on Tuesday shortly after the
Dutch and Greek migration ministers toured the former army camp. Plumes of smoke
billowed from the compound that Pope Francis visited only 10 days ago. A police
spokesman said garbage bins in a wing for young refugees had been set on fire
and the unrest spread from there. Aid workers said tensions had been building
in the camp for days but it was unclear what triggered the unrest in the
centre, which came soon after a visit by the Dutch and Greek migration
ministers, Klaas Dijkhoff and Yiannis Mouzalas.
Refugees and migrants have been held at the hillside
detention centre under terms of a March 20 deal between the European Union and
Turkey to stem the refugee flow into Europe. It stipulates that refugees who do
not qualify for political asylum must be returned to Turkey.
Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the
Istanbul-based leader of the world's Eastern Orthodox Christians, met migrants
begging for help as they toured the Moria camp on April 16.The Roman Catholic
pontiff took 12 Syrian refugees, who were living at another open-air camp on
Lesbos back to Rome on his airplane.Official data showed there were 4,313
refugees on Lesbos on Tuesday. The vast majority of them are held at Moria.
