More than 240 migrants at new Greek camp have coronavirus

Six Afghans facing arson charges after fire at migrant shelter

A girl waits to fill bottles near a temporary migrant camp on the Greek Aegean island of Lesbos. AFP

More than 240 asylum seekers at a new temporary camp on the Greek island of Lesbos are infected with coronavirus, the public health agency said on Monday.

Among 7,000 asylum seekers tested, 243 new infections have been discovered, the Eody agency said.

Other tests on 120 police officers and 40 staff at the camp, which was hastily built last week after Europe's largest migrant camp of Moria was destroyed by fire, were negative.

More than 12,000 people including elderly and young children were left sleeping alongside roads, in car parks and even in a local graveyard when the Moria camp burned down on September 8.

Six young Afghans face arson charges over the incident.

It took over a week for most of the asylum seekers to be rehoused in the new tent camp hurriedly built on a disused army firing range a few kilometres away.

Many migrants were wary of being locked up again after spending months at the notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary Moria camp, where ethnic gang crime was rife.

Since March, movement restrictions at Moria were even more stringent because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Several asylum seekers have now complained that the tents lack even basic bedding and that sanitation is rudimentary.

Another three migrant minors were arrested over a fire that broke out in the asylum seeker camp of Samos island on Sunday, officials said.

Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi on Monday told parliament that those responsible for the fire would "serve their sentence in Greece and will then be deported".

Mr Mitarachi said a "modern, safe and respectable" new camp will be constructed on Lesbos - even though local officials strongly oppose the move, demanding the immediate removal of most asylum seekers.