Third migrant found dead in Greek camp

A migrant was found dead in his tent yesterday on Greece’s Lesbos island, the third death there in a week, raising alarm about the grim living conditions in Greek camps.
A police official said the man was believed to be about 20 years old and from Pakistan.
Another migrant who shared his tent was critically ill and taken to hospital.
The lifeless man was found by fellow migrants in the Moria camp, a former military base that now houses thousands of refugees and migrants holed up in deteriorating conditions as they await word on their future.
“We wonder how many deaths it will take for the government to wake up,” said Stavros Theodorakis, leader of the small centrist party To Potami.
A Greek government spokesman was not available for comment.
Yesterday’s death followed the deaths of a 22-year-old Egyptian and a 46-year-old Syrian in the last week who shared a tent in the same overcrowded camp.
Greek media reported they died after inhaling poisonous fumes from a heater – an assertion neither confirmed nor denied by the authorities.
The police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk publicly, said foul play had been ruled out and that the cause of death in each case was not yet clear.
More than 60,000 refugees and migrants, most from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been stranded in formal or makeshift camps in Greece since March last year.
Thousands endured heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures earlier this month as a mid-winter freeze gripped parts of the country, including Lesbos.
The United Nations refugee agency and other international organisations have urged Greece to improve conditions at its overcrowded facilities, which US-based group Human Rights Watch has described as “deplorable and volatile”.
“We don’t know yet how they died but we do know the thousands stuck on the Greek islands have been suffering horrendous conditions in the cold, trapped by the failure of the EU to offer protection and dignity,” said Amnesty International’s Europe director, Gauri van Gulik.

Body of migrant boy found on Spanish beach
The lifeless body of a boy, believed to be a migrant trying to get to Europe, has washed up on a southern Spanish beach, authorities said on Sunday.
In a grim reminder of the discovery of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy found drowned on a Turkish beach in 2015, the body was found on Friday in the municipality of Barbate on Spain’s southern tip.
A spokesman for the Madrid government based in Cadiz province, where Barbate is located, told AFP that the boy was believed to be six to seven years old.
“The hypothesis is that he was a migrant,” he said, adding that the bodies of other people believed to be migrants travelling from north Africa had washed up on the coast further east more than two weeks ago.
Authorities are investigating “to see if there is any kind of link”, he said.
The September 15 picture of Aylan’s tiny lifeless body sent shockwaves around the world, becoming one of the most searing images of the migrant crisis.
While the focus has often been on the migrants and refugees heading to Europe via Turkey, Greece and Italy, a smaller number also head for Spain.
The country has two enclaves in north Africa – Ceuta and Melilla – surrounded by high barriers that are regularly stormed by migrants.
Others, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa, take to rickety boats to try to cross the narrow stretch of sea between Spain’s southern tip and Morocco.
According to the International Organisation for Migration, 13,246 migrants arrived in Spain last year, more than 8,100 of whom came by sea.
This compares to the more than 181,000 and close to 177,000 who arrived in Italy and Greece respectively.