Lesbos: Five years after Moria, can music bring healing?
· DWTo mark International Migrants Day on December 18, DW visited the site of the former Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, which was destroyed in a fire in 2020 and has been chosen as the location for a new music school.
Barbed wire still surrounds the place where the former refugee camp of Moria once stood.
At what used to be the entrance to the camp, excavators have started clearing the area.
Although the site is no longer is use, evidence of what used to be the largest refugee camp in Europe is everywhere.
Faded graffiti is still visible on the outer walls: "Graveyard," "#MeMoria," "Welcome to Europe" with two stars with sad faces drawn alongside.
Scattered among the rubble and ash are burned shoes, signs in Arabic outlining measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, bandages and scorched medical supplies.
In the middle of all this, one tree stands out: Green and undamaged, it rises from the scene of destruction around it like a beacon of resilience.
What happened at the Moria refugee camp?
DW visited the site in early December, just a few days after Storm Adel hit Lesbos and on the second day of the trial known as the Mardini trial where 24 aid workers are accused of helping migrants illegally enter Greece.
The trial is a reminder of how closely Moria's past is still linked to the island's present.
Situated just outside the town of Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, the Moria camp was built in 2013 and became Europe's largest refugee facility before it was destroyed by fire in September 2020.
The camp made headlines worldwide in 2015 due to the dire living conditions there, which drew harsh criticism from refugees, NGOs and even the European Court of Human Rights.
Designed to house fewer than 3,000 people, it became dangerously overcrowded during the refugee crisis of 2015, when Lesbos saw a sudden and massive increase in the number of refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria crossing the sea from nearby Turkey to enter Greece, a member state of the EU.
At the time of the fire five years later, it sheltered over 12,000 refugees in tents and makeshift structures.
A new beginning?
On Google Maps, Moria is listed as "Remains and ruins of the burnt Moria camp." It is marked as permanently closed and classified as a historical site. There is only one review: a five-star rating, left by a tourist guide.
Now, this site — once synonymous with despair — is slated for a transformation that seeks to bring hope and make a positive new start.
Plans are underway to build a music school on the site of the former camp. It's a symbolic effort to "turn the page" on the site's past and transform Moria's image from a place of tragedy into one of learning and creativity.
While there is still no firm timeline for the project, partly due to financial constraints, local authorities told DW that it has been clear from the start of discussions about what to construct on the site that the new building of the Lesbos Music School would be located here.
More than just a gesture
"Our school is scattered across temporary spaces," said Irini Xenelli, the school's director. She told DW that the school lacks "space for proper education, a yard to accommodate all students and rehearsal rooms."
According to Xenelli, the new building is not just a gesture, it's essential because the school has long struggled with chronic problems relating to its facilities.
Xenelli told DW that a building adjacent to the OAED (Greek Manpower Employment Organization) could have been repurposed to house the music school. She says that regrettably the building was not made available, although this would have been the quickest and simplest solution.
At present, she has no detailed information about the construction plan for the new building.
When DW asked the Greek Ministry for Asylum and Migration about the choice of Moria for the planned music school, a spokesperson referred questions to the local authorities.
A conscious break with the past
For the municipality of Lesbos, the project represents a conscious break with the past.
Repurposing a site so "charged" with difficult and painful memories is nothing new. Indeed, it is an approach that has been adopted repeatedly in many countries.
The goal of such (usually political) decisions is largely strategic, namely to restore a sense of "normality" and to remove, at least temporarily, the weight of the memory from the public mind.
However, for those who have lived on or near such sites, repurposing does not mean forgetting.
In this specific case, the decision to "turn a page" on Moria seems to signify something different: the need to develop a conscious policy for managing the memory of the refugee crisis, both for Greek society and for the refugees themselves.
"We are reclaiming this land for education and culture," a representative of the municipality explained to DW, adding "It is time to replace images of suffering with something constructive."
Are there still refugee camps on Lesbos?
Despite this conscious effort to turn a page, the impact of the refugee crisis of 2015 is visible across the island.
The words "Close Moria, smash fascism," can be seen on a building from the courthouse where the aid workers are on trial, while someone has scrawled "Greece kills immigrants" on a wall at a bus station in Mytilene.
And there are still refugees on Lesbos.
The Kara Tepe camp is just a short drive from the burned-out remains of Moria and close enough for the past to still feel visibly present.
The facility currently houses 1,202 people, around 31% of its capacity and significantly fewer than in previous years.
Outside the camp, people can be seen walking in slippers or pedaling bicycles from a large supermarket nearby back to Kara Tepe. At the entrance, a group of young men, barely eighteen, shows DW their blue passports, which allow them to travel to countries that have signed the Geneva Refugee Convention.
The new Vastria camp is expected to open nearby in early summer 2026. Although it was initially approved after the Moria fire and scheduled to be completed in 2021, progress was slowed by legal challenges and environmental concerns.
Vastria is situated deep within a pine forest, a landscape prized for its natural beauty but also known to be at risk of wildfires — a common phenomenon in Greece, especially in the summer months.
What happens next?
According to the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum, the Vastria camp is 95% finished. The ministry's spokesman also confirmed to DW that it is still unclear whether residents from Kara Tepe will be relocated to the new facility.
In a February 2025 press release, then Minister of Asylum Nikos Panagiotopoulos clarified that Kara Tepe will be closed once Vastria opens, and that the relocation of its residents has not yet been determined.
The minister emphasized that the new facility and the transfer of migrants inland are intended to support both the island's local communities and its economic development. This underscores how Lesbos continues to play a central role in migration management, even as the island seeks to transform the legacy of Moria into spaces of learning and creativity.
On Lesbos, the trauma of Moria still resonates. The stories of migration are written into the landscape and in everyday conversations, impossible to ignore.
It's not possible to say whether the construction of a music school can overwrite painful memories. Nevertheless, for the first time since the fire, something is being built on the site not to confine people, but to create opportunities.
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan