About 12,000 migrants, mostly Afghans, are housed in a space designed for 3,000 on Lesbos island.

Migrants protesting at an overcrowded camp on the Greek island of Lesbos set fires and clashed with police on Sunday, killing at least one person.

A burned body was brought to a local hospital and there was information about an unconfirmed second death, police said. The protesters were demanding to be transferred to the Greek mainland.

“The situation is tense,” Lesbos Mayor Stratis Kytelis said. “There is information about a dead mother and her child. We haven’t been able to confirm that yet.”

UNHCR Greece later tweeted that “we learned with deep sadness that the lives of a woman and a child were lost in a fire on [Lesbos] today”.

Greek police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos said the migrants lit a blaze at an olive grove outside the camp just before 5pm (14:00 GMT) and, minutes later, another inside the camp. Kytelis said both fires were later extinguished.

Police said Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Lefteris Oikonomou, a former chief of the Greek police, was going to Lesbos.

About 12,000 migrants, most of them Afghans, are housed in a space designed for 3,000.