[ad_1]
View of the destroyed Moria camp after a fire, on the island of Lesbos, Greece, on September 15, 2020 [Reuters/Vassilis Triandafyllou]
Even by the grim standards of Greece’s reception system, the September 8 fire in the Moria refugee camp is an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. It was not the first fire in the camp and it was completely predictable.
Successive Greek governments have restricted the movements of newly arrived refugees and migrants to maintain the migration agreement between the European Union and Turkey.
As a result, the island’s facilities have been severely overcrowded. The Moria camp, designed to house fewer than 3,000 people, was home to about 13,000 when the fire broke out.
Local authorities arrested six asylum seekers in connection with the fire and claimed they started it on purpose. We may not know exactly how the fire started, but we do know why.
Moria was a seedy camp with more than four times the number of people it could safely hold; the local population has been bearing the brunt of a lethal and unsustainable EU migration policy for too long; There have been legitimate fears about the spread of COVID-19 in the camp and on the island; And there has been a toxic cocktail of nationalism, conspiracy, and sowing fear. All that was needed was a match.
In the days after the disaster, the immediate priority was to find shelter, food and water for more than 10,000 homeless refugees.
The Greek government initially thought it could rehabilitate Moria by cleaning the charred remains of existing structures and installing tents.
He ruled out the transfer of refugees to the mainland for fear of COVID-19 spreading.
Residents of the island set up barricades to prevent reconstruction efforts. His opposition is understandable; “temporary fixes” have been sold before which, in fact, have lasted for years.
After days of sleeping out in the open, most of the migrants left homeless by the fire are now in a temporary camp. Basic needs, including the hygiene facilities that are so important during a pandemic, are still not being met.
The already overcrowded tents at the camp have no floor, meaning the first fall rain will make them completely uninhabitable. The government announced that these refugees will remain in Lesbos until Easter.
Tensions between residents, migrants and NGOs on the island have worsened in recent months, and especially after COVID-19 cases were discovered in Moria.
These tensions worsened after the fire, as the government allowed, or even amplified, toxic narratives in an attempt to deflect blame. As part of their campaign to denigrate humanitarian and human rights groups, the authorities even told the refugees that NGOs were not acting in their interest.
Many have commented on how fortunate it is that no one died in the fire. And yet Moria has been killing people for years. Self-harm and suicide have been rife, as have stabbings and beatings.
Open sewage, inadequate medical care, and nutrition have allowed diseases to spread. Last year, a baby died of dehydration and a mother and child lost their lives in a fire.
One wonders if there had been deaths from the fire of September 8, would the political reaction be stronger? Would Europe “never again” cry, as it did after the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi washed ashore in Turkey after he drowned while trying to reach Greece with his family five years ago? Is this the tragic price to pay for action to be taken?
If the current asylum system does not change, we will continue to have catastrophes like this. That is why immediate action is needed. To begin with, we must close these camps.
The new EU migration pact provides for even more camps like Moria, despite all the evidence that they are the centerpiece of a failed policy.
When the first COVID-19 case emerged in Moria, the Greek minister for immigration and asylum, Notis Mitarakis, revived his proposal to turn the camps into open-air prisons.
These camps not only fail to meet our human rights standards, undermining the EU’s position in the world, but they also don’t deter people desperate to flee war and poverty.
Cities and regions of Europe have offered to settle the refugees from these camps. The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has said it is ready to host 1,000 refugees displaced by the fire. There are others like Brandenburg, Thuringia and Berlin.
This follows a long campaign by local authorities across Germany to receive refugees from the Greek islands, a proposal that had been blocked by the federal Interior Ministry that has to give the green light to any relocation.
More voices should join those calling on the German government and other governments to allow humanitarian action. Other European cities have also offered to accept refugees and asylum seekers from Greece, notably some 119 Dutch municipalities.
The desire and infrastructure for evacuation are there; now we only need to expand them through a permanent relocation plan in the next EU migration pact.
Without proper EU action, I also fear what will happen to my own country, Greece. The political atmosphere is already deeply toxic.
While the initial fire was still burning, officials from the Migration Policy Ministry accused “foreign NGOs” of being responsible for the discontent in the camp that caused the fire. The government spokesman declined to rule out Turkish involvement.
I fear that the opportunity for consensus and reasoned policy is slipping away. Some now call Greece “the Hungary of the Mediterranean.”
If the EU cannot agree on an asylum policy, perhaps it can agree that a Hungary within its borders is sufficient.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
