Athens, Greece, 20 March 2019 — Martha Roussou, Senior Advocacy Officer for the International Rescue Committee in Greece, reports on the impact the EU-Turkey deal has had on the lives of refugees arriving on the island of Lesvos.
This week marks the third anniversary of the EU-Turkey Deal, a bad deal for refugees and asylum seekers seeking safety in Europe. The European Union has yet to come up with a fair and sustainable migration system. Current policies are still not offering sufficient legal and safe routes into Europe and are putting an unfair share of responsibility on countries where people first arrive, like Greece.
The EU-Turkey Deal stipulated that, among other things, Turkey would control its borders and take back people that had crossed over to the Greek islands irregularly. To implement this clause and facilitate their potential return to Turkey, Greece does not allow asylum seekers to leave the islands before their asylum claims are processed.
The result of this containment policy is that about 1 in 10 people living on Lesvos is an asylum seeker who is on the move. People from Lesvos gaverefugees an unprecedented warm welcome when they arrived in 2015 and many continue to devote their lives to them. The local population have understandable concerns around increasing the size of refugee camps, which have remained limited in size and overcrowded.
Last week, IRC hosted IRC Voice and Game of Thrones star Lena Headey on a visit to Lesvos where she was given a tour of Moria reception centre, which hit the headlines last year for severe overcrowding and outbreaks of violence. During autumn, over nine thousand people were crammed into shelters that are only meant to fit three thousand. According to an IRC report at the time, people living there couldn’t see an end to their time in limbo which, combined with the difficult living conditions, had profound effects on their mental health. Speaking with refugees from the camp, Lena understood how uncertainty exacerbates the desolation felt by those who are stuck on Lesvos.
Now, the situation has significantly improved as the Greek authorities recently transferred thousands of people from the islands and onto mainland Greece. The efforts of the authorities who manage Moria reception centre are also significant but pressure continues as people continue to arrive and the camp still hosts two thousand people more than it was built for.
The truth is this. Desperate people will not stop trying to escape war and violence and, despite the Deal, arrivals on the Greek islands have not stopped. As a result, camps remain overcrowded and services overstretched, with reception centres on Lesvos and Samos at double their capacity.
As the EU-Turkey Deal continues, so too does the crisis on the islands. The local population of Lesvos and the other Greek islands hosting refugees bear an unfair share of the response. Europe must agree on a fair and sustainable solution that ensures that no country is made to shoulder the responsibility alone, and that refugees are provided with safe and legal routes into Europe.