Under pressure Greek islands facing fourth year of refugee crisis

The Greek island of Lesbos is facing its fourth summer of refugee crisis with overcrowded camps showing no signs of reprieve.

One of five islands near the coast of Turkey it is being used by the EU to form a barrier to migration after more than a million people came through there in 2015-16, heading to western Europe.

But with 7,000 inhabitants, the refugee camp at Moria is now at more than 300 per cent capacity, and outbreaks of violence, often triggered by trivial disputes, are increasingly common.

Even so, more keep arriving. The number of island arrivals has surged this year from about 50 a day in 2017 to around 200 a day in recent weeks. Asylum applications are backed up by nearly three years, according to Lesbos’ regional governor.

A clinic run by the aid group Doctors Without Borders helps treat the sick among the camp’s 2,000 children, but has to turn less serious cases away.

Currently, asylum seekers on five Aegean Sea islands – Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros, and Kos – are banned from travelling on to the Greek mainland as part of the EU’S controversial “containment policy.”

That’s causing severe overcrowding at the islands’ camps, and the government has faced legal challenges and protests against the measure.

Meanwhile, to try to bypass the islands, an even higher number of migrants and refugees are now crossing Greece’s heavily militarised land border with Turkey in the northeast of the country.

That has forced Greece to overhaul its policy, and parliament is now debating draft legislation aimed at easing pressure on the islands.

Under the proposal, migrants would be allowed to move to camps on the Greek mainland, but they would remain under restriction and could be banned from leaving the regions of the country where they are placed.

The plan has already drawn fire from human rights groups, which argue that containment is to blame for poor living conditions on the islands.

“This situation causes distress, violates people’s rights, and insults the dignity of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. It’s an open wound for Greece and human rights,” Dimitraspatharidou,fromthe Greek office of Amnesty International, told a parliamentary committee.

Amnesty observers recently visited island camps, and found hundreds of people sleeping in makeshift tents, children sleeping in unsupervised sites, and some resting in fields overrun by rats.

“We saw dozens of men with papers in their hand saying they were suffering from depression, anxiety disorders, and had suicidal dispositions” Spatharidou said.