Greek authorities, including the relevant civil protection deputy minister, were urgently dispatched to a hotel used as a migrant shelter in southeastern Greece, near the town of Kranidi, after reports surfaced of as many as 150 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among the site’s occupants.
The third country nationals hosted at the hotel are described as people mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa who illegally entered Greece from neighboring Turkey and then submitted applications for political and humanitarian asylum.
A pregnant Somali woman at the facility was tested positive last week for the coronavirus.
In a brief statement, government spokesman Stelios Petsas merely noted that “there are increased cases of infection; we’ll do whatever we can to seal the area from exposure to the virus.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the 119th victim of the pandemic was announced in the country, with the latest fatality being a 35-year-old man hospitalized in the northern city of Thessaloniki. Reports said the man did not have an underlying health condition.
Later media reports cited more than 400 people, including minors, primarily from the DR of Congo and Somalia.
