http://infomobile.w2eu.net/2015/10/11/moria-lesbos-disastrous-conditions-in-the-future-hot-spot-while-un-high-commissioner-for-refugees-visits-the-island/
Moria / Lesbos: Disastrous conditions in the future “Hot Spot” while UN
High Commissioner for Refugees visits the island
Published on October 11, 2015 in Uncategorized. Closed Tags: detention,
greece, Hot Spot, Lesbos, lesvos, Moria, registration.
Queue of Non-Syrians October 10 / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Queue of Non-Syrians October 10 / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Pilot “Hot Spot” to open located on Lesbos island. Only one day before
the visit of UN High Commissioner for Refugees authorities close Kara
Tepe camp and move Syrians to Moria camp. Meanwhile Non-Syrian
nationalities being registered there already before have been kicked out
of the few UNHCR tents.
An Afghan mother falling asleep holing her five-months-old in the arms /
copyright: Salinia Stroux
An Afghan mother falling asleep holing her five-months-old in the arms /
copyright: Salinia Stroux
During talks with Europe’s migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos
and Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the
EU presidency, the latter stressed that the EU was ready to provide
financial and logistical aid to Athens to help get the Hot Spot centres
up and running. The first, he said, would open “within 10 days” on
Lesbos, in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is very likely it will be located
in Moria at least in the first period as there is no other place found yet.
Expulsed to the police fields... / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Expulsed to the police fields… / copyright: Salinia Stroux
The so called “Hot Spots” are planned by the EU in a technocratic way as
detention centers where newcomers will be registered, screened and the
eligible ones will be distributed to member states. UNHCR, Frontex, EASO
and Europol will play mayor roles inside these centers. The quota system
is meant to cover those arriving in Europe between September 2015 and
September 2017. The list of nationalities for relocation currently only
includes Syrians, Eritreans and Iraqis. There are attempts by the UNHCR
to include some Afghans too.
A buggy is hanging on the barbed wire of Morias' "First Reception
Centre" / copyright: Salinia Stroux
A buggy is hanging on the barbed wire of Morias’ “First Reception
Centre” / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Meanwhile Greek Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas stated to REUTERS,
that the European Union must stop countries picking and choosing which
refugees they accept in its relocation programme, otherwise it will turn
into a shameful “human market”. According to the Minister Greece was
having trouble finding refugees to send to certain countries because the
receiving nations had set what he called “racist criteria”. He declined
to name the states concerned, Reuters writes. “Views such as ‘we want 10
Christians’, or ’75 Muslims’, or ‘we want them tall, blonde, with blue
eyes and three children,’ are insulting to the personality and freedom
of refugees,” he continued. “Europe must be categorically against that.”
An EU official said a group of Syrian refugees was due to be relocated
from Greece to Luxembourg under the EU scheme around Oct. 18, the first
to be officially reassigned from Greece.
Concurring the Hot Spots the open question is, what will happen to the
remaining nationalities entering these centers. In the light of the
secret plans of the EU recently uncovered by the Times it is to be
feared that many thousands will be in danger of deportations.
Waiting to leave the island on an olive tree field / copyright: Salinia
Stroux
Waiting to leave the island on an olive tree field / copyright: Salinia
Stroux
On Saturday the UN refugee agency chief Antonio Guterres during his
visit on Lesbos, met the island’s mayor and inspected the two refugee
camps Kara Tepe and Moria. According to the UN Commissioner the Hot
Spots can only function if they provide for adequate conditions. But
Moria camp which currently seems to be the only possible location is not
more than an empty cage where systematic police violence is applied any
time numbers of refugees exceed the manageable size. Only a few days ago
and before Syrians were added to the population dealt with in Moria,
riot police was repressing the desperate tries of refugees to enter
registration procedures with tear gas and beatings. Many of the victims
were small children. Only after fast track registration procedures were
implemented again (as in the period in the beginning of September where
high numbers of arrivals had lead to escalating violence), numbers of
unregistered newcomers waiting for their papers decreased quickly.
Anyhow, this is most likely only a short term solution for emergency
situations as the EU presses for upholding the standards in the
Eurodac-data collection and completing registration procedures in the
first hand.
Registration queue of the Syrians / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Registration queue of the Syrians / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Since Friday October 9, when Syrian refugees were moved to Moria, they
receive a registration number upon entering the main gate and then have
to wait in a small crowd in front of the so called First Reception
Centres’ gates for their turn. Inside the gate people are waiting in a
fenced yard to enter further into the areal. Every time the inside gate
opens some families are pushing to enter raising their childs in the
air. “Malakes! You know what it means Malakes?” A young man in plain
clothes is shouting on the refugees. “Fuck you! Asshole!” he continues
shouting on the exhausted refugees while trying to control who enters.
Syrians sleeping in the big tent / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Syrians sleeping in the big tent / copyright: Salinia Stroux
With the closure of Kara Tepe, suddenly some measures have been taken to
improve infrastructures in Moria. Yet any form of stay there is
unbearable. Many Syrians sleep in a huge UNHCR tent like sardines one on
top of the other. Most families lack blankets. Hundreds sleep outside in
the dust, while their clothes are still wet: Babies, elderly, victims of
torture, handicapped alike. They are hungry and thirsty.
The lucky ones have tents, the others don't / copyright: Salinia Stroux
The lucky ones have tents, the others don’t / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Catering services which were halted in October 18, as the government
could not solve the issue of the unclear status of the camps, are still
not provided for by the authorities. The police still owes 6 Million
Euro for meals already provided by different companies in the past.
Solidarity groups together with NGOs try to cover this gap currently
offering one meal a day. Anyway, many people arrive after the meals are
distributed or leave before, so they would stay often for 1-1 ½ days
without any food and clean drinking water.
Queue of Non-Syrians / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Queue of Non-Syrians / copyright: Salinia Stroux
At the meantime all Non-Syrians have to queue on the back gate, standing
outside of Moria on a muddy street. The two lines separate families and
single men. Two busses of riot police stand in the yard near the gate.
An Afghan family with three toddlers camping only five meters away on an
olive field is sitting on the earth. It is after 2 o’clock in the
morning. A father belonging to the group reports of the rude behavior of
the officers he witnessed that day: “We stayed three hours in the queue.
While we were waiting one of the officers – the one with long hair – was
pushing around women and men. He even slapped one woman.”
Only fires keep the wet people warm / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Only fires keep the wet people warm / copyright: Salinia Stroux
The Non-Syrians have been technically expulsed from the inside of Moria
thus losing access to the UNHCR tents (which do not suffice anyway for
all those refugees), the mobile traders offering blankets, tents, food
and drinks (which most of them can’t afford anyway) and the toilettes
and showers (a filthy place where lights are not working). The clear
spatial separation implemented since Saturday brings also another clear
discrimination in access to services and to the insufficient but at
least existing somehow infrastructures. At the main gates police
officers control that Non-Syrians don’t enter. This decision has forced
the affected refugees do sleep rough in olive fields near their
registration gate and in the port of Mytilene in a period of time where
weather conditions are getting worse and rainfalls make any form of
sleeping rough difficult if not impossible.
Syrians sleeping in Moria / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Syrians sleeping in Moria / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Ideally, the mayor of Mytilene Mr. Ghalinos and the UN High Commissioner
would anyway prefer the Hot Spot to be located in the North of the
island, but the locals are resisting to this idea since it was first
expressed. On Friday 9th, a plenary of inhabitants from Molyvos and
Petra in the North of the island once more underlined their decision not
to permit the creation of a “Hot Spot” in their region, which according
to them is receiving 80% of the islands tourism.
Many children sleep outside in the fields, on the dusty ground or the
cement floor / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Many children sleep outside in the fields, on the dusty ground or the
cement floor / copyright: Salinia Stroux
It remains of high concern that the planned “Hot Spot” centers might
just replace the dying Dublin system for controlling refugee flows from
the very beginning, while refugees will be split in eligible protection
seekers and non-eligible persons to be deported. As explained in a
recent article in Open Democracy: “The Commission’s documents make clear
that the purpose of the operation is as much deportation and closing in
on smuggling networks as any concerns for the legal reception of asylum
seekers. This is what the new system attempts to change. … By getting
the UNCHR and Frontex to more directly intervene in the first moments of
arrival with identification and fingerprinting, the EU is attempting to
retake control of movement throughout the EU.”
Whatever might happen in future, it is clear is, that the planned Hot
Spots will bring new problems to refugees arriving in Europe and that
the ideal place for refugees is certainly not and will never be Moria.
What is going on there is a shame for humanity.
Refugees sleeping on the port of Mytilene / copyright: Salinia Stroux
Refugees sleeping on the port of Mytilene / copyright: Salinia Stroux
EPILOGUE
And then in the early morning hours it starts to rain. There are about
300 persons sleeping without tents in the port – many even without
blankets and some hundreds sleeping unprotected in the outside area of
Moria. …
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