Lesvos mayor: 'Moria is the Dachau of modern times'

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Europe

Lesvos island has been essentially a pit stop for asylum seekers for over two decades.

In 2013, the now infamous Moria camp was already set up. But back then, it wasn’t really a camp. It consisted of only a few housing containers (each housing about seven persons), lined up next to each other behind a barbed-wired fence in what seemed to be a big, dusty parking lot.

A handful of polices were guarding the whole place. In fact, on the day the CGTN reporter visited Moria, the police were more than the asylum seekers themselves.

It was January, and few dared make the crossing from Turkey. If they did make it and got arrested, they’d usually wait at Moria to get a police paper before moving on to the mainland and Athens.

The lack of hygiene is evident almost everywhere around the camp. /CGTN Photo

Almost no one applied for asylum in Greece back then. With that police paper, they could legally stay in Greece for 30 days, and almost all used that time to find a smuggler who’d help them continue their journey deeper into Europe.

Islanders and Greeks alike learned to live like that for years. Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Kurds, Pakistanis were coming every day.

But most would vanish almost as fast as they’d appear in Lesvos’ shores. The once eerily quiet Moria camp became front page news a couple of years ago when the world discovered the idyllic island of Lesvos (also home to Greece’s most famous drink, ouzo).

It was when the refugee crisis started breaking out. That’s when thousands of migrants and refugees, mostly Syrians, were landing in rubber boats on Lesvos every day.

Bana, 9-year-old, is from Iraq and lives in Moria. Women and children make up 60% of those living in the camp. /CGTN Photo

Then when Europe’s borders closed in March 2016, a new agreement between Europe and Turkey (the EU-Turkey deal) called for all new arrivals to remain on the island until their fate is decided through the asylum process.

That was Europe’s way to stem the flow of refugees into the continent.

Arrivals have indeed dropped dramatically. But almost all now apply for asylum to avoid deportation. And asylum seeker arrivals each month outpace departures.

That means they have to spend months and months in Lesvos’ overcrowded “jail” – which is how most of them call Moria.

Since the EU-Turkey deal came into effect, Moria slowly became what Spyros Galinos, the mayor of Lesvos calls “the Dachau of modern times.”

Moria has been overflowing while fights between different ethnic groups break out almost daily. Several families fearing for their safety have opted to live outside the camp. /CGTN Photo

With a capacity of nearly 2,500, close to 7,000 currently live there in abysmal conditions. The mayor doesn’t believe the EU-Turkey deal has failed but rather that it is not implemented correctly.

If people were transferred to the mainland fast enough, if those who are not eligible for asylum were returned to Turkey as the agreement calls for, Spyros Galinos says the camp would not be overflowing, and living conditions would be better.

Still, using the name of a Nazi concentration camp to describe a modern refugee camp in Europe may sound extreme.

But all it takes to realize that living conditions in there are nowhere near where they should be is to get in (the media are banned from Moria).

The CGTN team was invited by 22-year-old Palwasha from Afghanistan, who is 8-months pregnant and belongs to the so-called “vulnerable groups” that supposedly have priority to leave Moria and the island as soon as possible after they arrive here.

That should have been about 20 days. Instead, she’s been living in a tiny tent next to a toilet since she arrived with her husband, almost two and a half months ago.

She barely receives any pre-natal care there. Even the blanket they sleep on is a used, dirty one, given to them by another Afghan couple before they left Moria.

“I never imagined this is how I’d wait for my first baby,” she says. “In here, I became a psycho.”

Palwasha from Afghanistan is 8-months pregnant and has been living in this tent inside Moria for over two months. The tent is right next to a toilet. /CGTN Photo

The stench of urine and rotten garbage is so intense; it feels it latches on your skin and clothes and stays there forever.

Despite these horrendous conditions though, there’s an increase in pregnant refugees’ arrivals in Lesvos.

The island’s hospital is overwhelmed but its doctors, day and night, continue to do their job stoically.

“No matter how many pregnant refugees come, we will never deny to do what we’ve learned to do,” Dr. Panagiotis Provetzas, an obstetrician says. “We will continue to offer our help with all our heart. But we shouldn’t forget, tiredness also adds up.”

And it adds up for all here. For the locals, for the refugees and for everyone living on an island that has been welcoming refugees for years and has now turned into what many call a “floating prison.”