* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Here on the Greek island of Lesvos we’ve been hit by winter. A three-day storm last week brought chaos and desperation during five short days that saw the highest numbers of arrivals onto the island for the whole year. A record 48,000 people had arrived by dinghy across the Greek islands in one week, which is more than all of last year combined. The island of Lesvos saw over 27,000 alone, and all at the worst possible time.
In normal circumstances, a storm wouldn’t be a problem on a Greek island, but on Lesvos, and across all key travel routes from here to north Europe, the lack of shelter and basic services means people fleeing war and extreme poverty are facing conditions unthinkable in modern Europe.
On Lesvos, there are currently two transits camps. Moria is for non-Syrians, predominantly those from Afghanistan, and Kara Tepe is for Syrians and has a slightly quicker registration process. Save the Children works in both camps, as do other relief agencies. We provide a cooked meal once every day for between 2,000–8,000 people, and we also run a safe space for children and mothers who need to feed their babies, as well as identifying the most vulnerable families who need extra support.
However, the services in Kara Tepe have always been better since the majority of the emergency response so far has been there, but this is becoming unacceptable and the consequences are now more apparent than ever.
Recently, the camps were thrown into disarray again as registration processes were changed and Syrians were brought to register in Moria as well. People were moved back and forth between the camps, causing delays and a backlog of people stuck on the island. A direct consequence of this was the chaos that we saw during the storm, and so much unnecessary suffering.
In Moria camp, I was stopped in my tracks by a child shivering uncontrollably. She was unable to walk or make eye contact, her hands and lips were literally blue. Her mother was nearby, also unable to walk. One of our team members picked up the little girl, and the rest of us carried the mother to Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Minutes later, we found three young men unconscious with hypothermia, whose friends had dragged them through a hole in a fence into the camp. Working with UN staff and volunteers, we did everything we could for them while we waited for the one of two ambulances on the island to take them to hospital. One of the men regained consciousness, and tears of pain and complete anguish began to run down his face as we desperately rubbed his hands and feet to try to get some warmth into them.
Like thousands of others, including children, they had been forced to sleep for three days in the field next to the transit camps because the queue for non-Syrians to be registered had been moved outside to make way for the new system. Right now, there are no toilets for those waiting in the queues outside the camp, so faeces mixes into the flowing streams of drinking water.
Only families who have been registered are allowed to sleep inside the transit camp, but that is not much better. Moria is on a hill, and most of it isn’t gravelled so the rainwater turned nearly the entire area into a mud bath. The skin on every last child’s hands and feet was completely shrivelled from being in water and mud for three days. People resorted to lighting fires in tents and porta cabins to try and get warm, and smoke billowed throughout the camp.
People who’ve fled Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, who’ve faced unbelievable violence and poverty, were breaking down in tears at what was happening. A woman from Afghanistan queueing in our food distribution line with her children reached out and clung to me, sobbing into my shoulder, clearly having reached her limit and needing some kind of comfort, even from a complete stranger.
All day long, people were pleading for help from anybody. Mothers wrapped their babies in rubbish bags trying to keep them dry, and fathers held plastic bags over the heads of their children. We gave out all our stocks of blankets and dry clothes but there just wasn’t enough. The lack of dignity these people were facing was shocking to see, even for aid workers like us at Save the Children who’ve worked in camps, conflict areas, and natural disasters for years.
At the border between Greece and the former Yugoslavian republic of Macedonia (FYROM), where people move onwards after the islands, the first snows are expected next month. Though there are more systems in place there, when they cross over the border, they have nothing but the clothes they wear to protect them from the elements. Save the Children is running a safe space for children there, and will be distributing warm clothes, boots, and blankets for children. But we already are seeing people wearing plastic bags inside their shoes or sandals, or using litter bags as makeshift raincoats.
Along the journey refugees and migrants take, Save the Children, the UN and other international agencies, along with tireless volunteer groups, are doing everything they can, but it is just not enough. The past week has been just a glimpse of what lies ahead in the coming months and it’s terrifying to think that a child could die here.
Europe needs to wake up to what winter means for the thousands of child refugees and migrants who arrive here and move onwards in the hopes of safety and a better life.
