ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th April, 2020) The Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum on Sunday announced locking down the Malakasa migrant facility near the capital of Athens after one of its residents was diagnosed with COVID-19, imposing quarantine measures on the second migrant camp in a week.
On Thursday, the Greek authorities, which refer to migrant centers as "hospitality facilities," quarantined the Ritsona camp 46 miles north from Athens after 20 of its residents were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19, all of them asymptomatic. The facility with a capacity to accommodate 3,000 people has been shut for entry and exit for 14 days.
"A full sanitary quarantine has been introduced this morning for 14 days at the old hospitality facility in Malakasa. This decision was made after a case of COVID-19 infection was detected in the facility in a 53-year-old Afghan man who lived at the facility with his family," the ministry said in a statement.
According to the statement, the man reported feeling unwell on Saturday and following a medical check up on the spot, he was urgently taken to a general hospital in Athens � 30 miles south from the camp � where a lab test confirmed the coronavirus infection. He is now under medical surveillance, the statement read.
The ministry said the patient's family was isolated in home quarantine and their contacts were being established.
The "old hospitality facility" that the ministry cited in its statement referred to the facility with a capacity of 2,500 people that functioned in Malakasa before a new, closed one, was built and opened on March 15 to accommodate migrants arriving after March 1.
International human rights organizations and advocacy groups have long been sounding alarm over the fragility of migrant facilities before and during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lack of adequate hygiene conditions and impossibility of ensuring proper social distancing there.
