Riot police
walk on a road near the town of Madamados as demonstrators protest against the
construction of a new migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, on February
25, 2020 | Manolis Lagoutaris/AFP via Getty Images
Anger and ‘fatigue’ on Greek islands over
migration limbo
Government plans to create detention centers has
reignited protests and mistrust on the islands.
By PATRICK
STRICKLAND 2/25/20, 6:40 PM CET Updated 2/26/20, 4:59 AM CET
Patrick
Strickland is a freelance journalist based in Athens.
CHIOS,
Greece — For most of Europe, the migration crisis that spiked in 2015 is a
fading memory. For locals and asylum seekers on Greece’s Aegean islands, it
never ended.
Some 36,000
people hoping to settle in Europe remain spread across Chios, Lesvos, Leros,
Kos and Samos in so-called reception centers designed to house no more than
5,400. Trapped in limbo, unable to leave the islands until their asylum
requests are processed, their ordeal is exacerbated by an overtaxed system
facing a backlog of 90,000 applications.
Islanders,
frustrated by a lack of support from Athens and the European Union, have become
increasingly vocal in their opposition to the camps, which many feel have
become a burden on their communities.
Moves by
the center-right government to shutter the camps and build closed detention
centers in their place have escalated tensions in recent months, compounded by
a spike in new arrivals. Efforts to clear land to build these centers, which
locals fear could become permanent fixtures, have been met with protests. On
Chios and Lesvos, people who gathered on Tuesday to protest the arrival of riot
police and excavation machines were met with tear gas.
“The everyday life of the people [on the islands] has
been overturned” — Mayor of Chios Stamatis Karmantzis
The crisis
is spilling over into Athens, too. Mayor of Chios Stamatis Karmantzis, along
with North Aegean Regional Governor Kostas Moutzouris and mayors from Lesvos
and Samos, joined a protest outside the interior ministry earlier this month to
demand a better solution to the flurry of new arrivals.
“The
everyday life of the people [on the islands] has been overturned,” said
Karmantzis from the sidelines of the demonstration, describing the situation as
"out of control."
“[W]e
islanders now need to receive solidarity from the rest of Greece and Europe,”
said Georgios Stantzos, the mayor of East Samos.
* * *
On Chios,
many islanders feel abandoned. With confidence in the government’s ability to
manage the catastrophe lost, many have joined protests — coordinated with
locals in Lesvos and Samos — against the plans. In Chios, the island's largest
town, a banner reading “No to turning the North Aegean into a prison of souls,”
hangs above the main square.
Several
kilometers away, near the village of Chalkio, 4,700 people live in an abandoned
factory filled with dozens of containers. The camp is known as Vial, and it
hosts four times its intended capacity; at least half live in makeshift shacks
cobbled together with sheets of wood and scrap metal, which spill across the
surrounding olive grove.
“Vial is
psychological torture,” said Sama, a 29-year-old Syrian refugee who arrived in
November via Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran and Turkey and asked that her real name be
withheld. “You can’t change it, and you can’t escape it. You just have to
survive it.”
The camps
are dangerous. Already overcrowded and lacking both basic sanitation and access
to medical care, they are pushed to breaking point by high numbers of arrivals.
Violent riots have broken out at camps across the islands, including at Moria
on the north shore of Lesvos, where some 19,000 people live in a space designed
for about 2,800. Human rights organizations have warned of a humanitarian
catastrophe.
"Living
conditions are tough for both the people who stay there ... and for the [Greek]
people residing on the island," said Chios Mayor Karmantzis. "There
has been a great mistrust" between the government and the Aegean islands
over the last five years, he added. "The locals are really worried."
Karmantzis,
who was elected in May, was expelled from the governing New Democracy party in
2016 over comments that “the only good Turk is a dead Turk.” Since taking
office in Chios, he has backed anti-migrant protests on the island and accused
nonprofit organizations working with asylum seekers of “breaking” Greek
islands.
Some
residents share his view. "Asylum seekers are illegal immigrants, not
refugees," said 22-year-old Chios resident Panagiotis Krimadis at the
protest outside the interior ministry. He wants them moved from the island,
claiming their presence has taken a toll on the local economy by negatively
affecting tourism.
According
to Ioannis Stevis, founder of Chios-based progressive news outlet Astraparis,
far-right attacks on asylum seekers, humanitarian workers and others surged at
the start of the refugee crisis in 2015. He was attacked in 2016 while
reporting on a story.
"There
is a poisonous climate, which is built by the regional governor and the mayors
[on the islands]," he said. "They have a xenophobic voice, and people
listen to them.”
Although
the frequency of these attacks has tapered off, he is worried the situation
could escalate.
Some 20
local politicians and citizens in Chios established the Coordinated Committee
of Representatives and Residents last week in order to organize protests
against closed detention centers and call for the dismantling of the Vial camp.
On Lesvos,
locals and municipal officials dumped thousands of migrants' life jackets on
land earmarked for a closed center in protest of its construction.
Georgios
Stantzos, the mayor of East Samos, made headlines when he was caught on video
cursing and shoving a group of asylum seekers occupying a public square in the
town of Vathy in December.
* * *
Since coming to power in July, the right-wing New
Democracy government has taken a much harder line on migration than its
predecessor, Syriza, which oversaw the worst of the crisis. The party has
promised to deport more than 10,000 people before the end of 2020, passed
legislation aimed at curbing refugee arrivals and last month announced plans to
erect a floating border wall near Lesvos as a pilot program in the Aegean Sea.
Prime
Minister and party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has asked the EU to pledge more
money to help deal with the influx of people — who he said were mostly
“economic migrants” rather than refugees fleeing war-torn regions — and called
it “deeply unfair” that EU countries refuse to help or resettle asylum seekers
who arrive in Greece.
Deputy
Minister for Citizen Protection Georgios Koumoutsakos, who deals with migration
issues, said the priority in Athens is on deterring new arrivals. The idea is
to alleviate the overall burden on the Greek islands, which have been at the
forefront of dealing with the waves of people trying to reach Europe from
Turkey.
Last year,
the U.N. Refugee Agency estimated that more than 60,000 asylum seekers reached
Greece by land and sea, the largest spike in arrivals since the European Union
and Turkey made a deal to stem the flow of refugee boats in March 2016.
To many of
the mayors, the only viable option is to move asylum seekers to better-equipped
facilities on the mainland.
Koumoutsakos
added that the government is confident it can mend growing rifts with local
authorities. "We understand that there is this fatigue [on the
islands]," he said. "We are trying to build bridges of trust between
them and the government, and [with] local mayors and the regional
governor."
To many of
the mayors, including Stantzos from Samos, the only viable option is to move
asylum seekers to better-equipped facilities on the mainland.
For those
trapped in limbo, it can’t get much worse.
"Stuck
here until now, we don't know about our cases, or the decisions being made
about us," said Mohammed al-Shareef, a Palestinian refugee from the Gaza
strip.
Moving to a
real facility with water and electricity would feel like progress, he added. He
wants to leave the island for Western Europe, and hopes the camp will be shut
down.
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