On the brink of humanitarian emergency for many families trapped on Greek islands
Tuesday, December 5, 2017 — For the second consecutive winter, Greek authorities are trapping thousands of men, women and children on the Greek islands leaving them on the brink of a humanitarian emergency, warns the medical and humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). In response to this crisis, MSF is scaling up its emergency humanitarian intervention and is calling on EU and Greek authorities to open the islands and immediately move people to the mainland.
“In Lesvos, entire families who recently arrived from countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are packed into small summer tents, under the rain and in low temperatures, struggling to keep dry and warm,” explained Aria Danika, MSF’s project coordinator in Lesvos. “People’s psychological conditions are also shocking: in our mental health clinic we have received an average of 10 patients with acute mental distress every day, including many who tried to kill themselves or self-harmed. The situation on the island was already terrible, now it’s beyond desperate”.
Due to the restrictions imposed by the EU-Turkey deal, which blocks people on the islands, the camp of Moria on Lesvos is dangerously overcrowded. Currently, there are more than 7,000 people in a camp built for 2,300 people, with an average of 70 new arrivals from Turkey to Lesvos every day – the majority of whom are women and children. In the camp, there aren’t enough showers and toilets, little access to water and whole families are sleeping in small two-person summer tents, which expose them to rain and cold temperatures. In Samos, 1,500 people are living in a camp designed for 700 people, and hundreds are sleeping under tents without any heating, and with poor hygiene conditions.
These horrendous living conditions pose a critical risk to people’s health and lives, and already last year five people died in Moria as a consequence of the living conditions inside the camp. The situation is particularly dangerous for small children who have limited ability to cope with such difficult weather conditions. This untenable situation is also provoking increased tension and desperation among the migrants and refugees, with local residents and authorities protesting that the islands are transformed into prisons.