Pregnant migrant sets herself on fire in Greek camp

An eight-months pregnant Afghan asylum-seeker was released from hospital Tuesday after having set herself on fire over the weekend at a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, the migration ministry said.

The 26-year-old woman placed her two children outside her tent on Sunday before setting fire to it in a bid to burn herself alive, said police.

Other camp residents, police and firefighters all helped put out the blaze, the statement added.

Examined in hospital, it emerged that she was suffering from psychological problems after having had her request to be relocated to Germany refused – though a ministerial source said that this had been “a misunderstanding”.

The authorities had asked her to stay in Greece until her child was born, but she had not understood this, said the ministry source.

The woman is due to go before the prosecutors’ office at Mytilene, the main town on Lesbos, accused of having set fire to her tent, said police.

The temporary camp on the island, which hosts 6,000 asylum-seekers, was hastily put together after fires destroyed the island’s notorious Moria camp, which was the most over-populated in Europe.

Camp residents and migrant rights campaigners have denounced what they say are the deteriorating conditions at the replacement camp in the winter conditions.

On Tuesday, a child was found dead following a fire at a refugee camp north of Athens, the latest in a series of such incidents at camps around Greece.