Germany plans to take in 1,500 migrants currently taking shelter on Greek islands, government sources told AFP, in addition to roughly 150 asylum seekers from the burnt-out Moria camp. 

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 said. 

Earlier on Tuesday, Greece's migration ministry said some 800 of the thousands of asylum seekers who fled a fire that destroyed Europe's biggest migrant camp have been housed at a temporary site on the island of Lesbos.

Thousands of people had been left wandering aimlessly since a blaze ripped through the overcrowded Moria camp on September 8.

The fire forced its 12,000 former occupants to sleep rough in abandoned buildings, on roadsides and even rooftops.

Officials have been hastily erecting a new camp of white tents near the eastern port-village of Panagiouda as exhaustion, hunger and fear set in among the migrants.

Many refused to enter the new camp, fearing they would be unable to leave once inside.

Others were reluctantly making their way to the site in the searing heat.

But some 800 of them are now housed in the temporary centre, the ministry said.