A 27-year-old Afghan refugee woman was burnt to death early on Thursday in the container where she was staying with her family in the Kara Tepe refugee camp, on the island of Lesvos.
Her death was later attributed to the explosion of a gas canister used for cooking.
The woman was living in the container hut that caught fire with her 28-year old husband and her three children (aged five, two and a newborn baby). The children were rescued by their father, who then passed out in his effort to also pull his wife out of the burning container and had to be taken to hospital for respiratory problems.
Gas canisters are not allowed inside the camp and the family had smuggled it into the container to use for cooking. A heater was also being used by the family, in addition to the airconditioning units provided by the UNCHR, due to the cold. This set fire to bedding inside the container, which in turn caused the canister's explosion.
The Kara Tepe camp is owned and operated by the municipality of Mytilene and currently hosts 1324 refugees. All of them are members of vulnerable groups while the majority are families with children.