Our Lives in Lesvos

Putting this into as short of terms as I possibly can, here’s the story:

Monday night the government sent MAT police (aka special armed forces or riot police) on the ferry from Athens. Their purpose here is to stop us from protesting against the construction of another refugee camp here on Lesvos.

I’ll back up a little…why don’t we want another refugee camp?

The camp we have now, Moria camp…it has a capacity for 2,800 refugees and immigrants.

It currently holds 27,000.

The idea of the camp is that refugees/immigrants will arrive and stay there momentarily so their papers can be processed and they can then move on to their next destination.

But that’s not what’s happening. Their papers aren’t being processed. They’re stuck here.

The conditions in Moria camp are deplorable, some have even said it’s the worst refugee camp there is. I don’t know, I haven’t been to others but I can say that yes, this is horrible. The government receives money to take care of it, yet there are still people living there in absolutely inhumane conditions. We don’t know where that money is going…

Now the government has decided to build a second camp further north on the island. This camp will hold another 5,000 refugees and immigrants

Or more accurately, it will have a capacity for 5,000. But how many will there really be?

Actually I’m going to change the vocabulary I have used here. This “camp” the government wants to build? It’s not a camp. It’s a detention center. The doors will be locked. Refugees and migrants awaiting approval for asylum will be imprisoned here until their papers have been processed and they’re granted the right to move on. Then what will happen after this detention center is built and it’s bursting at the seams because again they’ve exceeded capacity? Others will have to be built. But how many others?

Just to clarify: Refugees are coming from Syria, they’re escaping war. They need help. If you’ve seen photos of Syria now you can see it’s nothing but a shell. Migrants however, come from other places. Afghanistan primarily at the moment. These people aren’t running for their lives from threat of war. They are just on the pursuit of a new life and following the same foot path as the refugees to find it.

A lot of media coverage have inaccurately portrayed this issue as an islanders versus refugees situation. That we’re racists and we don’t want them. That’s not true. We’ve helped them since day one. We still help them as much as we possibly can. But we don’t have the resources to keep helping them. We hardly have the resources at this point to help ourselves. Tourism is what keeps a roof over most of our heads and food on our tables and it has been massively affected by this situation. Many people have stopped traveling to our island because they think they’re going to get caught in the middle of chaos. You won’t. You won’t even see it unless you want to have a look at the camp yourself. The rest of Lesvos is still as it has always been. But people don’t know that because the media has sensationalized and said otherwise, scaring people simply to get ratings and garner attention for themselves. People have lost jobs, closed businesses and even moved away to try to start their lives over again, thanks to this.

Medical care is important to talk about also. We have one hospital on the island. Our population is generally 90,000. With the 27,000 refugees and immigrants that we have currently that’s 117,000. Yet we still have the same number of doctors and medical staff that we have had on duty before all this happened.

To say this is heartbreaking is a massive understatement. This is our home. But if our own government gets its way and turns this island into a massive prison camp for refugees and migrants, we and our children won’t have a home here anymore. And what is supposed to be a temporary home for refugees and immigrants? It seems that the government isn’t too interested in the word “temporary” since papers are not being processed and they are using force against us to build their concentration camps. They’re not even interested in the word “democracy” anymore. While our local municipality representatives stood next to us in peaceful protest for our rights and our futures, the government responded by sending MAT police, secretly during the night, to pepper spray and tear gas us in an attempt to make us go home and be quiet. Today, they fought even harder.

As I write this it’s 10:00pm. There are still people out protesting. My family, friends, and neighbours are there, standing and fighting in shifts so our presence and our voices are there around the clock. My throat and eyes are burning from my own tears and the chemicals that were thrown in our faces today.

We will not be quiet. We will keep fighting.

Please support us by sharing our story. Your voice is just as important.