Under a plan agreed by Chancellor Angela Merkel and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, Berlin will take in migrants who have already secured refugee status, giving priority to families with children, the sources told AFP.

Merkel’s right-left coalition government is in talks over the plan, with her junior partner Social Democrats expecting a deal by Wednesday.

After a fire laid waste to Greece’s biggest refugee camp Moria last week, pressure has grown on Merkel’s government to offer refuge to the 11,500 left homeless by the disaster.

While Berlin has voiced readiness to open its doors to more than the 150 minors, German media reported however that Athens opposed Germany taking in more asylum seekers from Moria.

Doing so may incite more migrants to set fire to their shelter in Greece in the hopes they would then be offered refuge by Europe’s biggest economy, according to Bild daily.

Families slept on roadsides and in supermarket parking lots and fields across the island, which was at the forefront of the European migrant crisis in 2015-2016, Al Jazeera reported.

There had been about 13,000 people in the camp.

Tuesday night’s inferno at Moria sent thousands rushing to save their lives, reducing the camp – notorious for its poor living conditions – to a mass of smouldering steel and melted tent tarpaulin.

A second fire broke out on Wednesday night, destroying what little was left.

Desperate families, many with young children, spent Wednesday night in the open, some without tents or basic bedding. Some of the homeless trekked to the nearest villages for water and other supplies.

Police reinforcements were brought in to prevent refugees and migrants from reaching the island’s main town of Mytilene, confining them to fields and roadsides.

Officials have declared a four-month emergency on Lesbos and flown in additional riot police.

Authorities were already at loggerheads with locals over plans to replace Moria with a closed reception centre, which Lesbos residents fear would mean thousands of asylum seekers remaining permanently.

A government official who declined to be named said that sheltering refugees and migrants on boats was not a safe solution and was sending the wrong message to migrants who would want to leave Lesbos.

The fire brought fresh tragedy to the refugees who had been living in Moria. The camp was under quarantine restrictions due to an outbreak of COVID-19 last week.

Authorities are investigating whether Tuesday night’s fires were started deliberately after COVID-19 tests led to the isolation of 35 refugees.