Greece: 8-month-Pregnant Refugee set herself on Fire after being denied transfer to Germany

An eight-month pregnant woman tried to set fire to her tent in the Lesbos refugee camp (Greece) after learning that she would not be transferred to Germany.

Now, the 26-year-old is facing a possible prison sentence: she has been called to answer in court tomorrow on the charge of aggravated arson.

As it has become known through the local media, the young woman, of Afghan origin and who has already received refugee status, should have been transferred to Germany a week ago, but at the last moment she could not fly due to the advanced stage of her pregnancy.

After this, on Sunday morning she took her two children out of the tent they share in the refugee camp and set herself on fire.

Thanks to other people staying there and to the workers of the center, the fire was controlled and the woman was transferred to the Mytilene hospital, where she is being treated for burns, and is now out of danger.

The flight in which the woman should have been transferred was the first direct between an Aegean island and Germany and allowed 116 people recognized as refugees, including 30 families with minors from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, to ​​arrive in Hanover.

The refugee camp of Lesbos houses around 7,000 people and was built in record time to respond to the humanitarian crisis of last September, when fires destroyed the ignominious Moria camp, leaving thousands of people out in the open.

Since then, the new range has been widely criticized for the lack of facilities, preparation for the arrival of the cold and even for having been built in part on an old firing range where traces of lead have been found.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday night a 6-year-old boy died in a fire in a refugee camp in Thebes, about 50 kilometers north of Athens.

According to media, the boy lived in a container with his parents and three siblings, all asylum seekers from Iran, and he was the only one in the family who could not escape the fire.

The Fire Service has not been able to determine the origin of the fire because, when they arrived in the area, they had to be escorted by police officers to the anger of the neighbors, who recovered the boy’s body themselves due to the delay in helping and threw stones and other objects to the trucks trying to get close to douse the flames.