The director of the Moria migrant camp on Lesvos has accused U.S. magazine Newsweek of reporting “fake news” regarding the situation at the camp which has been labelled as the worst migrant camp in Europe.
Following the recent report in which Newsweek alleged that sexual assault against young boys and girls has spiked in recent months, Yiannis Balbakakis said that, based on information from forensic officials, the number of reported rape cases is “very small.”
The report was partly based on an interview with Declan Barry, the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) coordinator.
He told the magazine that the group alone has received 21 reports of cases of rape and sexual assault since May, with almost half the victims being girls and boys under the age of 18 and at least two being children aged as young as 5-years-old.
“One case is not acceptable, let alone one a week. And I’m sure it’s happening a lot more frequently than that,” Barry told Newsweek.
The MSF representative will be summoned by authorities over his claims, Balbakakis said and added that camp authorities have followed due process with all incidents, reporting cases to the police and carrying out forensic examinations of abuse victims.
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