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On the Greek island of Lesbos, there is great resistance to the new refugee camps. The government of Athens is resolutely staying on course. The politics of hardship has a history.
Temporary tent town established by the army: Providing aid after the fire in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos is proving challenging.
Even five days after the devastating fire in the Lesbos refugee camp, thousands of people are literally sitting on the street. Most of the camp’s former residents are completely unprotected near the road that leads from the camp near Moria to the industrial zone of the island’s capital, Mytilene. Last week, several fires, allegedly set on purpose, largely destroyed Europe’s largest refugee camp. The facility, which is designed for 2,800 people, last housed 12,500 migrants and refugees.
Providing help is difficult
According to Nicolas Perrenoud, who runs the activities of the small Swiss organization One Happy Family on Lesbos, providing help is proving challenging despite the enormous need. Food and water were available in sufficient quantities, and relief supplies also arrived on the island. Without the camp structures, however, layout is a problem, especially in the extremely tense atmosphere that currently prevails. The water distribution spiraled out of control on Saturday. “Actually, the army should guarantee security, smaller organizations like ours cannot do that.” But the military has no mandate to do this. Basically there is a lack of coordination and conceptual leadership by the government in this emergency situation.
The Greek army has brought in tents for the past few days and, with the help of volunteers, set up a tent city for 3,000 people at the Karatepe military site. People especially in need should find shelter here, families with children as well as the elderly and infirm. The first tents were occupied on Saturday. With the exception of the 400 unaccompanied minors who have already left the island, the government does not want to transfer any residents of the camp to the mainland.
One concern is that attempts to destroy the camps in order to effect relocation could also take place on the other islands where the refugees are staying. Moria is the largest and most famous refugee camp in the Aegean. But the situation is catastrophic everywhere. Overcrowding is even more dramatic in Samos, where more than 6,000 people live in a 680-person site. However, there is also no capacity to house refugees on the mainland.
Migrants and local population reject new camps
In view of the dire conditions that existed in Moria before the fire, but of course also due to the desire to finally reach mainland Europe, some of the government’s plans for new camps were met with vehement rejection by migrants. On Saturday, a demonstration clashed with the security forces; Tear gas was used which, due to the overcrowded conditions, also affected uninvolved families with young children. According to Perrenoud, some migrants have even tried to prevent families from moving to the new camp in order to maintain pressure on the authorities to accept a transfer to the mainland.
Conditions for the displaced refugees from Moria are precarious.
There is also fierce resistance from the Lesbos population to the new refugee camps on the island. It is significant that the new tent city was built on an army site. Landowners, but also municipalities, are reluctant to make land available for new camps. It is questionable where more accommodation options will be created for the thousands of homeless migrants on Lesbos under these circumstances.
In Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos, resistance to the construction of new closed camps, which were planned before the fire, is sometimes massive. At the five Greek refugee hotspots, the local population and government are correct in the view that Athens is shifting the main burden of migration policy to its region. The fact that the migration minister himself, Notis Mitarakis, comes from Chios has not generated more regional support for national policy.
Security policy comes first
Immigration policy has always been the Achilles heel of the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which took over the reform a year ago. In contrast to economic policy, complaints in the asylum system were underestimated. Consequently, politics lacked concepts. As the number of newly arrived immigrants and refugees continued to rise last fall, the government came under increasing pressure. Mitsotakis did not breathe again until the crisis on the land border with Turkey. His determined reaction to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement that he would no longer prevent migrants from leaving for Europe made the Greek head of government more popular. Erdogan’s maneuver, which in Greece was also understood as an attack on the country, also led to the migration problem being seen mainly as a security problem.
This is still the case today, especially in view of the great tensions between Ankara and Athens due to the maritime borders in the eastern Mediterranean. After the fire in Moria, there was numerous, if unsubstantiated, speculation on social media about Turkey’s possible involvement in the fire. Athens politics of hardship must also be understood in this context.
This climate is not conducive to fundamental reform of the apparently flawed asylum system and a substantial improvement of the unsustainable situation in refugee camps. In any case, the conflict with Turkey dominated the political agenda in Greece even in the week of the great Lesbos fire. On Saturday, Prime Minister Mitsotakis announced that major investments will be upgraded in the military, air force and navy. In view of the increased tension in relations with its difficult neighbor for more than two decades, security policy comes first in Greece.
