Tag Archives: Immigrant holding center

Cruise ship considered to house migrants in Greece

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Image result for migrant cruise ship

Photo thanks to EuroNews

by Phil Davies

Leasing a cruise ship is one of the options reportedly being considered to use as emergency accommodation for thousands of migrants stranded in the Greek island of Lesbos after a fire gutted their camp.

Hiring a local stadium is also in contention after the island’s overcrowded refugee detention centre went up in flames on Monday night after clashes between rival factions.

Riot police have been sent to the island to bolster security in Moria, a hilltop village near the camp.

About 3,000 migrants who fled have since been caught and escorted back to the camp, but at least 2,000 others remain unaccounted for, with officers searching fields and olive groves to track them down.

The island’s mayor, Spyros Galinos, demanded that the Greek government move the asylum seekers off the island and find a more permanent answer, The Times reported. There were more than 5,700 migrants in a camp built to house 2,500.

“We don’t want temporary solutions,” he said. “We need a boat to start shipping these people out of here, to other places in Greece. We don’t need additional flash points, especially as the situation remains explosive here.”

Witnesses said dozens of tents and prefabricated units were destroyed by fire after reports circulated that the authorities were planning to deport hundreds of migrants to Turkey. At least 200 children have been transferred to a shelter in Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos.

More than 500,000 migrants crossed from the Turkish coast to Lesbos last year. A deal between the EU and Turkey initially helped to stem the tide, but the number has increased again in recent months, leaving 60,000 people trapped in Greece.

Under the EU deal, all new migrants should be sent back to Turkey, but only after any claims for asylum have been heard in Greece. The plan allows for those accepted as refugees to go to the top of the queue for relocation into the EU — once they have returned to Turkey.

An estimated 13,000 asylum requests have been filed since March, creating a backlog that understaffed officials in Greece have been unable to handle.

Each asylum request takes up to four months to process, creating friction among those stranded in detention centers such as Moria, while opposition to the arrivals appears to be growing, the newspaper reported.

“The situation is out of control,” Galinos said. “We’re like a powder keg about to explode.”

What Was World’s Largest Cruise Liner Faces Unglamorous End As Floating Immigrant Hulk City

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First Choice (Tui) Island Escape
 

A luxury cruise liner which when built was declared the world’s largest has been selected to become a floating city to house Sweden’s massive surplus of migrants, in a deal that is likely to net the ship owners millions of crowns.

Sweden’s Migration Bureau, the fastest growing and one of the most influential government ‘Quangos’ in the country has after months of deliberation selected US Shipmanagers to fulfil their tender for floating migrant accommodation, but the deal is contingent on their finding a berth. The tendering process for the giant accommodation project has been under way since November last year when a spokesman said they were looking for a number of ships, offering at least 1,500 beds each.

Now the luxury cruise ship MV Ocean Gala has been selected, offering places for 1,790 migrants. Launched in 1982 as the MS Scandinavia, she was the largest cruiser of her kind in the world and has been operated by a number of luxury operators including Sundance, Royal Admiral, Royal Caribbean, and Thomson.

The ship was sold by Thomson cruises last year after a flurry of unfavourable publicity surrounding the ship. Britain’s Daily Mail reported nearly 100 former passengers were taking legal action against Thomson after alleged poor hygiene on-board led to a massive outbreak of “diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and dehydration”.

In her new role as a dormitory ship, she will earn her owners some 800,000 Swedish kronor (£66,000) every day in payments from the Migration Bureau and the initial contract will see it occupied for a year, reports Aftonbladet.

Owners US Shipmanagers boast on their website significant experience of providing emergency accommodation, having been founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, leasing two 1,200 bed cruise ships in New Orleans to provide space for students after their halls of residence were destroyed. Pages on their ships boast of “on-board amenities” making time on-board “enjoyable” and feature images of well-equipped gyms and residents relaxing on the sea-facing balconies of the former cruise liners.

The last remaining obstacle to the project getting under way is US Shipmanagers finding a suitable berth. The first choice in the deep-water port of Harnosand is expected to be rejected by the town council over concerns about the impact of having 1,790 migrants in the harbour, reports local paper Allehanda. All of Sweden’s major cities – Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmo have harbours, and may be approached next.

While accommodating 1,790 migrants on a single craft may seem like a lot, the numbers involved are just a fraction of the estimated 160,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Sweden last year, with many more expected in 2016. As reported by Breitbart London when the cruise accommodation plan was announced last year, the Migration Bureau said they were looking for a number of ships, and were even exploring the possibility of putting migrants on decommissioned oil rig accommodation blocks