ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th November, 2019) Migrants living in squalid conditions in a cramped Greek camp have refused to move into an abandoned monastery, media said Friday.
A group from the overcrowded Moria refugee center on the island of Lesbos was invited by a local cleric to resettle to a vacant temple on the Peloponnese peninsula, kalavrytanews.com said.
The arrival of mostly women and teenagers from Iraq, Syria and African countries was met with protests by inhabitants of nearby villages.
But they were left speechless when most of the migrants filed out of the temple and climbed back into buses after a few minutes inside the monastery, saying it was too cold and far from community life.
"Moria is better," they were quoted as saying by the online publication.
Three women from Syria and two from Iraq reportedly stayed in the Orthodox Christian monastery together with four little children.
Refugee shelters on Greek islands have been stretched to the breaking point. The EU border agency Frontex estimates that the migrant flow to Greece from Turkey surged 31 percent since the start of 2019 as people seek a better life in the European Union.
