13,000 chairs outside German parliament in Greek migrant camps protest

Campaigners placed 13,000 chairs outside the German parliament building in Berlin on Monday, in a symbolic protest calling for the overcrowded migrants camps in Greek islands to be shut down.

Each chair represented one of the people stuck in terrible conditions in the Moria camp on Lesbos island, Greece's largest reception camp, said the organising groups, Seebruecke, Sea-Watch, Campact and LeaveNoOneBehind.

The chairs also recalled that German communes and states, with Berlin at the head, have said they are ready to take responsibility for migrants languishing in the insalubrious camps on several Greek islands.

"The Bundestag was on holiday this summer, the humanitarian catastrophe at the EU external borders was not," the groups said in a statement. | Politician of the Greens Party Margarete Bause poses with a sign reading 'enable admission'.

Almost 13,000 people live in Moria, which is only meant to have capacity for fewer than 2,800.

Last week Greece announced the first coronavirus case in the Moria camp.

German MPs pose with placards amidst 13,000 chairs placed in front of the Reichstag building.

Vice- President of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, Claudia Roth poses with a sign reading 'enable admission' as activists place 13,000 chairs in front of the Reichstag building in an action to call for the evacuation of the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

The chairs symbolically stand for people actually living in Moria, as well as for the space and the readiness of cities, federal states and the civil society to receive those refugees. The chair installation is taking place in the context of the anti-racist action days by "We’ll Come United" and is organised by several groups such as Sea-Watch, Campact and LeaveNoOneBehind.

Overall, there are nearly 24,000 people in five Greek island camps built to handle fewer than 6,100. Germany has taken in 465 people from these camps, mostly sick children and their families. Berlin alone has promised to take in over a thousand. | Tents are seen outside the perimeter of the Moria refugee camp in Greece.