(Photo: Zoran Dobric)
Read more at DWN, translated by Karin exclusively for SouthFront
The situation in the EU Hotspot on Lesbos could worsen dramatically in a short time. Human rights activists fear that there could be an outbreak of violence once the refugees and migrants figure out that their situation is hopeless.
A human rights activist, who doesn’t want her name published because of her work, has written down an assessment of the situation in the Greek Hotspot Moria for DWN. The editor knows the author personally and knows about her integrity. Her judgment is remarkable.
Last Saturday Greek soldiers transported thousands of refugees from the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos to the mainland. The reason: On Sunday, March 20th, the EU-Turkey refugee deal came into force: According to it, all the refugees coming from Turkey to Greece will have a shortened asylum procedures contrary to the Geneva Refugee Convention, and be will deported back to Turkey against their will.
This way the EU politicians want to make room in the registration centers (hotspots) on the Greek islands for the newly arriving refugees. Not to make it more comfortable for the fugitives, but because Turkey is not willing to take back refugees who have reached Greece before March 20th.
According to UNHCR, men, women and children who have been housed since Sunday in the hotspot in Moria on the island of Lesbos, are detained. They await a short asylum procedure and then they will be deported to Turkey. When and how is currently unknown.
The registration center, which is already been built like a prison, has too little room to accommodate all new arrivals. Anyhow, thousands of them wait in the cold in tents in front of the registration fortress in Moria. Hypothermia, malnourishment and illnesses cause death again and again for people that are fatigued, kids and the elderly. Violent conflicts are preprogrammed, if you think about what will happen in the hotspots in Moira when people, after two or three days, find out that they are being held. Once they learn that they are not brought to Europe but returned to Turkey, when they learn the hard way that they are treated as a toy and not as human beings.
What happens when desperate people, who don’t have to lose much more, are being disregarded humiliated and hurt?
It was planned that refugees spend a maximum of two to three days in the registration center in Moria – as long as it takes for the officials for their application. At least that’s how the EU politicians sold it to us. But now that the registration center is used like a prison, a true human disaster looms – even worse and more dangerous than that at the Greek-Macedonian border in Idomeni.
The hotspot in Moria has too few staff and too little beds for the refugees. Much has been reassigned to charities in Moria – Doctors without Borders (MSF) take care among other things of the hygiene in the registration encampment; the Red Cross takes care medically of the people outside the hotspots; UNHCR has already announced that it wants to stop bringing the refugees to the hotspot, because people are detained there. MSF wants to withdraw also.
Obviously human rights and human lives are irrelevant to the EU leaders. The main thing for them is – no refugees facing our border.
