The Forgotten Refugee Crisis in Europe

<p>Among the olive groves of Moria, on the Greek island of Lesbos, a makeshift city of tents and containers housed thousands of asylum seekers who had fled conflict and hardship in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.</p><p>Already frustrated at the deplorable conditions, inhabitants’ anger was compounded by coronavirus lockdown restrictions. The situation reached a breaking point this month when fires were set, probably by a small group of irate asylum seekers, according to the authorities. The flames decimated the camp and stranded nearly 12,000 of its residents in the wild among tombstones in a nearby cemetery and on rural and coastal roads.</p><p>We chart the European refugee crisis and the events that led up to the blaze at Moria.</p><p>Guest: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/matina-stevis-gridneff" target="_blank">Matina Stevis-Gridneff</a>, who covers the European Union for The New York Times.</p><p>For more information on today’s episode, visit <a href="http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily" target="_blank">nytimes.com/thedaily </a></p><p>Background reading: </p><ul><li>The<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/world/europe/camp-fire-greece-migrants.html" target="_blank"> fires at the Moria camp</a> have intensified what was already a humanitarian disaster. Originally built to hold 3,000 newly arrived people, it held more than 20,000 refugees six months ago</li><li>The camp’s inhabitants had for years resented the squalid conditions and the endless delays in resolving their fates. Those frustrations collided with the restrictions imposed to combat the coronavirus, and<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/world/europe/lesbos-fires-coronavirus.html" target="_blank"> the combination has proved explosive</a>.</li></ul>