Greek government sends navy ships to host freezing refugees on Lesvos

After coming under fire for its lack of preparedness and inability to provide proper shelter for people at the Moria hotspot in Lesvos during the freezing weather spell by both the media and the EC, the Greek government decided to hastily dispatch a navy vessel to the island to alleviate their suffering. The vessel “Lesvos”, which is expected to dock at the port of Mytilene on Wednesday morning, will host 500 and 1,000 refugees and migrants. Bitter winter weather, replete with a rare heavy snow storm, meant that hundreds of people were camped out in unsuitable tents and infrastructure, a development that generated heightened international and domestic criticism for the already embattled Tsipras government. The announcement of the vessel’s dispatch to the island, in fact, was announced by the prime minister’s office, which issued a press release citing Alexis Tsipras’ personal intervention to host as many of the third country nationals as possible on the fully-equipped ship.