The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Woman sees Brexit hit the cost of sending aid
APerth woman who sends aid to refugees in Greece has told of her difficulties in shipping the charitable goods out post-brexit.
For the last two years Suzanne Milne has regularly been visiting the former Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos and filling shipping containers full of clothes, toiletries and medical supplies to send.
She has now set up a new collection point at Cash for Clothes in the Ladeside Business Centre, but has been warned she faces “significantly” higher shipping and custom costs now the UK has left the European Union.
Suzanne initially went out to do humanitarian work with the charity Attika Human Support two years ago and is now the charity’s UK co-ordinator.
She said: “Two years ago in February I went to Lesvos to do volunteering.
“I was only there for a short time but it was pretty dire.
“There were 8,000 people in the camp which was designed for 2,500 people, tops.
“We were distributing clothes, shoes, blankets and tents and when I came back to Scotland I thought ‘I need to do something more, I can’t switch off from that situation’.
“I started to collect clothes from people locally in April 2019 to send out a 40-foot container and a lot of businesses got involved to pay the £4,000 shipping costs and it went out in August 2019.
“On the day of loading that container we decided we would get another container sent in October 2019.
“After that Brexit didn’t happen but people were still messaging me on a daily basis to collect clothes for the refugees so we sent out a third container in February 2020 and I went back out to Lesvos for it arriving.
“But when I went back to Lesvos the situation had changed drastically.
“There were 26,000 refugees on the island by that point and it turned out to be a very difficult experience because there was a lot of unrest and riots happening between the local people and the Greek government.
“The container was delayed and didn’t arrive until after I had left.
“I didn’t do a lot in the summer because I needed to decompress.
“It was very intense, but I did another appeal and sent out a container in October.”
There are still 8,000 refugees in Lesvos and 16,000 across the Greek islands, including some tourist destinations.
There are a further 35,000 in Athens and 45,000 across the rest of mainland Greece.
A fast-track asylum
scheme has been introduced by Greek authorities but Suzanne said this means refugees have to leave the camp and, without enough cash to live on, end up sleeping rough.
“When someone claims asylum the European Union gives them a payment of €75 a month; however, as soon as the asylum application is accepted that help stops and they have to vacate the camp,” Suzanne said.
“There is zero government support or
help from Europe at that point, which is why so many people end up on the streets.”
Suzanne is trying to get another container full of aid out to Lesvos in the next couple of months.
She does not know exactly what to expect, but has been told shipping and customs fees could be several thousands of pounds more than what she paid before.
She said: “I didn’t know what would happen with Brexit and I didn’t know how feasible it was to send another container after Brexit. But lots of people had a clear-out after Christmas and donated even more clothes.
“When I called the shipping company to find out, I was the first person this year asking for information like this so they didn’t know. But the cost has increased by thousands of pounds.
“My last container cost £7,000 because I had to purchase the actual container as well as pay for shipping because Greece is in lockdown and there are not enough volunteers there to unload the container.
“I had to purchase it and leave it there but it is also very difficult to find space on ships for containers and the custom charges could be several thousands of pounds as well.”
The UK Government did not respond to a request for comment.