Moria - after the fire
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 September 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The fire that destroyed the sprawling Moria asylum seekers’ camp on the Greek island of Lesvos last September made headlines around the world. For the asylum seekers who lost their makeshift home and most of their possessions, it was a devastating setback. For Greece, still hosting thousands of migrants Europe won’t take in, the fire intensified a determination to move them on elsewhere. What’s happened to some of Moria’s former residents since then? Working with Athens-based journalists Katy Fallon and Stavros Malichudis, Maria Margaronis follows a few of them - all Afghans - as they negotiate the search for safety and stability some migrants call “the game.” After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, tens of thousands of Afghans are trying to leave their country. These are the stories of some who had already made the journey.
Presented and produced by Maria Margaronis Special thanks to Lighthouse Reports for their support in gathering this material
(Image: Refugee girl playing in the ashes of the ruined Moria camp. Credit: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On the 8th of September 2020, fire ripped through Europe's largest refugee camp, |
| 0:09.4 | Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos. It was terrifying. |
| 0:14.0 | Each second it was closing to our hands. |
| 0:20.0 | It gobbled up shacks, homemade mosques and bread ovens, clothes, papers and photos, |
| 0:25.6 | the few personal things people had managed to save on their long journey to safety. |
| 0:30.6 | My paper, my passport. For many... safety. |
| 0:34.0 | For many, Moria had become a symbol of Europe's failure to accommodate migrants and refugees. |
| 0:40.0 | Set up to receive 3,000 people. At one point it housed 20,000, a sprawling shantytown where |
| 0:47.9 | raw sewage ran down muddy tracks and there were knife fights every night. But it was also a kind of home. |
| 0:55.0 | After the fire, |
| 0:58.0 | thousands of people were left milling around in the hot sun for days, |
| 1:01.0 | many of them children, bewildered, frightened, angry. |
| 1:09.8 | Police fired tear gas to contain them. |
| 1:14.0 | But what's become of them since then? |
| 1:16.0 | For this week's assignment on the BBC World Service, |
| 1:19.0 | we've kept in touch with some of Moria's former residents, |
| 1:22.0 | sometimes over crackly phone lines, as they've tried to make their way through this turbulent year. |
| 1:27.0 | I'm Maria Margaronis. Stuck in London because of the pandemic, I've been working with two reporters based in Athens, |
| 1:34.3 | Katie Fallon and Stavros Malichordis. |
| 1:37.8 | Katie and Stavros both in Umoiria well before it burnt down. |
| 1:41.4 | They can't forget those first days after the fire. |
| 1:44.0 | I remember I arrived early in the morning and we drove to the checkpoint of the police. |
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