‘Only a
matter of time’: Greek migrant camps brace for coronavirus outbreak
Nothing is
being done to prepare for mass infection, rights groups say.
By
MADELEINE SPEED 3/24/20, 2:32 PM CET Updated 3/24/20, 2:33 PM CET
LESVOS,
Greece — On the Greek islands at the forefront of Europe’s unresolved migration
crisis, social distancing and self-isolation are luxuries many can’t afford.
In Moria,
Europe’s largest informal migrant camp, some 20,000 people live in an area
designed to house no more than 3,000. Tents and makeshift shelters spill out
past the official reception center’s fences and down the hill into the
surrounding olive groves.
Here, it’s
close to impossible to comply with the World Health Organization’s guidelines
for slowing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic that’s claiming thousands of
lives across Europe: Wash your hands frequently; maintain your distance from
other people; self-isolate when you experience symptoms.
At the camp
on the island of Lesvos, hundreds of people share the same water source, and
most residents spend hours in queues on a daily basis for food and essential
supplies. Sanitary conditions are notoriously poor.
"They
don't have isolation facilities," said Siyana Mahroof-Shaffi, the founder
of Kitrinos Healthcare, a charity that provides medical care inside Moria camp.
“They don't have a home. All they can do is sit in a tent and hope for the
best.”
Tasos
Balis, who advises the mayor of Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos, said that
“it’s only a matter of time” until the outbreak wreaks havoc on migrant camps
on the islands.
Many
migrants don't have their own tent and rely on the kindness of others for a
place to sleep — something that could cause the virus to spread even faster.
“One night in one friend’s tent, one night in another,” said 16-year-old Shams
from Afghanistan. He regularly leaves the camp to escape the fights that break
out at night. “We don’t have anything. We are alone.”
Tasos
Balis, who advises the mayor of Mytilene, the capital of Lesvos, said that
“it’s only a matter of time” until the outbreak wreaks havoc on migrant camps
on the islands.
Aid workers
and rights organizations rang the alarm bell after the first coronavirus case
on Lesvos was confirmed on March 10.
They called
on the Greek government to take urgent action and evacuate the migrants to stop
mass infection — something that has not yet happened. There has yet to be a
confirmed case of coronavirus inside the migrant camp.
“Containment
is the only existing plan,” said Peter Casaer, Médecins Sans Frontières'
representative on Lesvos. “[The virus] is at our doorstep and nothing is being
done. It's like they're forgotten, abandoned, sacrificed for fortress Europe.”
In a
statement on March 12, MSF warned that “with unhygienic, cramped living
conditions, the threat of an outbreak among people is very real, yet there are
no epidemic response plans in place.”
Ylva
Johansson, the European commissioner for home affairs, said worries about the
impact of the virus on asylum seekers keeps her awake at night. She said the
situation for many in the Greek camps was "unacceptable already"
before the current crisis. "The risk of having the virus in those camps is
a really dangerous one," she told POLITICO's EU Confidential podcast.
Johansson
said she is talking to Greek authorities, international refugee agencies and
charities to try to improve conditions on the islands.
Members of
the European Parliament on Monday took up the call for a “preventive
evacuation” of the overcrowded camps,
saying "the humanitarian crisis on the Greek islands risks becoming
a public health issue for which an immediate European response has to be
found."
“Many of
those in the camps (42,000 people in total) are already in a precarious health
situation, and despite the measures taken by the Greek authorities, the
overcrowding and the dire living conditions make it difficult to contain
COVID-19,” Juan Fernando López Aguilar, the chair of the European Parliament’s
Civil Liberties Committee, wrote in a letter to Janez Lenarčič, the European
commissioner for crisis management.
"Every
human being has the capacity for empathy. But when fear rises, empathy
goes" — Peter Casaer of Médecins Sans Frontières
There are
only six intensive care beds available on the island, the letter said, and no
chance of isolation or social distancing.
So far,
Greece’s migration ministry has responded to the risk of an outbreak by passing
measures to limit the movement of asylum seekers on the islands. The government
is also accelerating the construction of a new permanent closed facility on the
island of Samos and will expand the camps on Kos and Leros. The ministry did
not respond to requests for comment.
Monitoring
the spread of disease in sprawling, makeshift camps like Moria is infinitely
more difficult than in a closed facility, where every movement is tracked, said
Jason Straziuso, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC), which has dealt with Ebola and cholera outbreaks in detention spaces
But many
aid organizations also worry that limiting people's movements in government
facilities could be detrimental to their human rights, robbing them of some of
the personal freedom they have living in open camps like Moria.
There is
also a fear that restrictions on movement could spark panic. The question is
how to maintain calm while also preventing infection. "We don't have any
magical solutions. In fact, we fear that it could be impossible to stop the
spread,” said Straziuso.
Volunteers
worry that the coronavirus situation in migrant camps in the Greek islands
could turn catastrophic | Manolis Lagoutaris/AFP via Getty Images
In the
absence of a comprehensive plan of action from the government, volunteers say
they are doing their best to prepare for a situation that could tip into chaos
quickly, in the hope that small measures that raise awareness and improve
hygiene will have an impact.
Movement on
the Ground, a Dutch NGO, has hung hand sanitizer dispensers from trees in Vathy
camp on Samos. In Moria, they have established a new food line, so that people
spend less time in queues, where they risk coming into contact with someone who
has been infected.
Mahroof-Shaffi,
of Kitrinos Healthcare, and a number of other aid organizations are waiting for
approval from local authorities to erect two field hospitals beside the camp —
one for isolation, and one to treat cases of COVID-19.
She is
worried that migrants may be especially vulnerable to complications from
contracting the coronavirus, as some 80 percent of her consultations are for
respiratory tract infections caused by the fumes of fires migrants build to
keep themselves warm, she said.
Another
source of concern is the health of local doctors, officials and aid workers on
the ground. A spike in violence and intimidation against aid workers by local
vigilante groups in recent weeks — following protests against government plans
to build permanent migrant facilities on the islands — has already driven some
NGOs away.
For those
living in the migrant camps, the situation puts them in even greater limbo.
With Europe in crisis mode and borders being erected between countries wanting
to contain to virus, their chances of receiving asylum — or their claims being
processed soon — seem low.
"Every
human being has the capacity for empathy,” said MSF’s Casaer. “But when
fear rises, empathy goes.”
Fears of
catastrophe as Greece puts migrant camps into lockdown
Doctors say
coronavirus outbreak could be disastrous amid ‘horrific’ conditions
Laura
Spinney
Sat 21 Mar
2020 05.00 GMTLast modified on Sat 21 Mar 2020 05.02 GMT
As the
Schengen area closed its external borders last week, in a move designed to
replace the closing of member states’ national borders against imported
Covid-19 infection, some internal barriers still went up in Europe. The day
after the European commission’s announcement, the Greek government introduced a
set of measures that would apply to the migrant camps in the Greek islands.
As of
Wednesday, the camps have been locked down from 7pm to 7am. In the daytime,
only one person is allowed out per family, and the police control their
movements. Some camps, on the islands of Leros and Kos, have been closed
entirely.
Meanwhile,
visits to the camps’ reception centres have been temporarily suspended, except
for those who work there, and arrivals are being subjected to compulsory fever
screening. The measures only apply to the camps, not to the resident population
of the islands.
In the five
Greek island “hotspots” that are sheltering about 42,000 people, one case of
Covid-19 has been recorded. The affected person is a resident of the island of
Lesbos. There have been no cases in the camps so far.
In Greece
as a whole, 464 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded and six deaths. The
government has banned mass gatherings and is urging Greeks to practise social
distancing. Thirteen hospitals on the mainland have been turned over to the
treatment of Covid-19.
“The
imposition of this restriction of movement on the people of the camps and not
for anyone else on the islands is unacceptable and discriminatory,” said
Apostolos Veizis, director of the medical operational support unit for Médecins
sans Frontières (MSF) in Greece. “You are locking children, women and men into
severely overcrowded camps where the sanitation and hygiene conditions are
horrific.”
The largest
camp, Moria on Lesbos, is temporary home to about 20,000 people but was built
for just over 6,000. In parts of Moria, there is one water tap for 1,300
people, one toilet for 167 people and one shower for 242 people.
Up to six
people may be sleeping in 3 sq metres (32 sq feet), a quarter of the size of an
average parking space. “They do not have enough water or soap to regularly wash
their hands and they do not have the luxury of being able to self-isolate,”
Veizis said.
Over a
third of the migrants are children, just under a half of whom are
unaccompanied. Their principal countries of origin are Afghanistan, Syria,
Iraq, Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and their average
stay in the camp is between five months and a year.
There are
already high levels of health problems among the migrants, due to the
unsanitary conditions, and high levels of stress. Veizis calls the situation “a
chronic emergency”. “If we had an outbreak in these camps, it would be
disastrous,” he said.
The Greek
National Public Health Organisation, which is responsible for health in the
camps, did not respond to requests for comment. However, a European commission
spokesperson, Ciara Bottomley, wrote in an email that the commission was
funding the deployment of doctors and other medical staff to the hotspots. “The
healthcare response in case of an incident on a hotspot island foresees first
treatment at the local island hospital followed by air evacuation to one of the
specialised hospitals in the mainland,” she went on.
Those
measures appear to apply to local residents only. Since last July, all arrivals
to the camps have been excluded from the Greek healthcare system. Three
government-funded doctors are conducting vulnerability screening in Moria, but
the only medical care is being provided there by NGOs and voluntary groups.
Veizis said
MSF had been in contact with the government to discuss case management in the
camps as part of the government’s evolving Covid-19 strategy, in case of an
outbreak there.
Meanwhile,
he fears the new regime will add to the migrants’ stress while fanning tensions
between them and local residents. Violence directed at NGOs forced some of them
to temporarily suspend operations this month.
The new
measures, Veizis says, are just “one more element to pit the people of the
islands against the asylum seekers”.
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