Paradise lost: Holiday isles now a squalid migrant camp
THEY are the Greek islands usually seen by thousands of British holidaymakers as the perfect place to get away from it all.
But such is the influx of migrants into Kos and Lesbos that the islands are now struggling to cope – forcing thousands to live in squalor.
Makeshift camps are springing up on roadsides with families sleeping in filthy conditions with no water or sanitation.
Some have resorted to dangerously rewiring lampposts to try to charge up mobile phones and other electrical items.
The arrival of 1,000 new migrants every day in Lesbos has prompted humanitarian agencies to send emergency teams to Greece because they fear a health crisis.
Authorities in the cash-strapped country have been accused of failing to properly address the issue.
Debate about how to deal with the migrants comes as MPs in the country prepare for a crucial vote on economic reforms ahead of a planned EU bailout.
Greece has taken over from Italy as the focal point of the European migrant crisis. Families – mostly from Syria, Afghanistan
‘Everybody is struggling’
and Iraq – have been making their way to Turkey and then making a six-mile journey to Greek islands in flimsy boats. Journeys from the Turkish ports take as little as 20 minutes, with migrants paying smugglers up to 800 euros (£565) each for a place on a boat. But after travelling across the Aegean Sea, many migrants are being forced to walk up to 20 miles to reach designated camps that are already close to capacity.
Conditions at the unofficial Kara Tep camp in Lesbos, which has seen up to 2,000 new arrivals in recent days, are particularly dire.
Families have been forced to sleep on roundabouts between puddles of stagnant water, using discarded Coke cans to boil water.
Aid organisations including the International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Borders have sent emergency teams to Kos and Lesbos to assist migrants. They say the huge number of migrants and lack of clean facilities pose a serious health risk.
Former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband, who heads the IRC, accused European states of setting a ‘terrible example’ by failing to address the issue. ‘ The requirement for IRC to deploy staff is a terrible commentary on the failure of European countries to meet immediate and basic needs of refugees,’ he said. ‘We are a non-govern- mental organisation focused on the victims of conflict in the poorest countries in the world, yet Europe’s inability to support Greece means we have to send staff to the richest region in the world.’
Elisabetta Faga from Doctors Without Borders said: ‘Everybody is struggling and the authorities are trying to do something but we need to remember this is Greece so they are overworked already.’