ANKARA - Khodadad Mohammadi, one of the Afghan refugees who stayed in Moria Camp on Lesbos Island, which was burned to ashes by the latest fire, said that at least the prisoners were able to get out thanks to the fire. Stephan Oberreit, Director of Doctors Without Borders in Greece, said that instead of building a new camp to the island, the refugees should be taken to the mainland.

 

Moria Refugee Camp on Lesbos Island, Greece, was turned into ashes in the fire on 8 September. According to official sources, thousands of refugees left outside, staying in the streets, fleeing the fire in Moria Refugee Camp, the largest in Europe, hosting 12,000 refugees. While it is not yet determined why the fire broke out, it is known that there was another fire broke out before in the camp where asylum-seekers were staying above capacity, and some refugees lost their lives by freezing to death as a result of that fire.

 

Bethany Reilley, a reporter for the Morning Star Newspaper publishing in Britain, told her observations of the camp where she volunteered for four months back in in 2019.

 

'THERE WAS NO EVACUATION PLAN' 

 

Telling that she was at the Lesbos Island between February 2019 and June 2019, Reilley stated that the camp had a capacity of 3 thousand people but at least 8 thousand were staying at the camp at that time. Reilley said: "The residents lived on top of each other in very confined spaces either in tents, make-shift structures made from corrugated iron and sheets or containers called isoboxes. February and March were very cold months on the island and there’s a strong biting wind from the sea so people were very very cold in the camp. It felt like a prison - it was surrounded on all sides by towering gates topped with barbed wire. It felt like a shanty town, though it is just a few miles from Western towns and villages."

 

'A CHILD WAS KILLED IN THE FIRE BROKE OUT IN MARCH'

 

Reilley continued: "Because the camp was so crowded, the fire was able to spread rapidly across the site when it broke out last week. No fire safety regulations existed in the camp. One regulation requires tents to be spaced 2m apart to prevent flames spreading from one to the other. In Moria there was barely 1mm between tents. There was also no evacuation plan for the camp despite many fires having broken out in recent years. In March this year a child was killed when a fire started in a container." 

 

THEY HELD THEM UNDER LOCK DOWN

 

Reilly noted that with the pandemic, many non-governmental organizations and human rights groups called for the evacuation of the camp, demanding the refugees to be taken to the mainland, Reilly said: "Throughout the coronavirus outbreak, NGOs and human rights groups have called for the camp to be evacuated and the refugees sent to the mainland. Instead the Greek authorities, with the support of the EU, have kept thousands of refugees under a partial lock down, allowing a very few people to leave or enter Camp Moria for six months. They claim this was to protect refugees and locals from the virus. However many groups believe this was a pretext to close the camp - a long-held wish of the right-wing Greek government. A week before the fire broke out, the first cases of covid were found in the camp prompting the authorities to issue a full lock down on the camp. So after 6 months of being trapped in a dirty, overcrowded and dangerous camp, now refugees had no right to freedom of movement.  People cannot live like caged animals. Unfortunately it was only a matter of time before something like this happened."

 

HE LIVED AT THE DETENTION CENTER FOR 8 MONTHS

 

Afghan refugee Khodadad Mohammadi, who left the camp on August 28, is also one of the refugees who lived under the conditions mentioned by Reilley.

 

Stating that his life was in danger in Afghanistan and that's why he migrated to Greece and he can not go back, Mohammadi said: "My asylum application was rejected. And when that happens, you are put in the detention center like a criminal. Then I had another application meeting and I was released after that. I went straight to a friends house when I was released. I don't know what will happen next."

 

'I WAS SUBJECTED TO ALL KINDS OF DISCRIMINATION'

 

Stating that around 4 thousand people were staying at the camp when he arrived almost 3 years ago, Mohammadi said that the number has increased to almost 7 thousand in a year. Pointing out that there were around 13 thousand people in the camp when he left the camp 2 weeks ago, Mohammadi said: "But not all of them were at the Camp Moria. The government is establishing other camps in the island. There were 10 thousand people at the camp before the fire. The rest was staying on the streets and in tents."

 

Mohammadi continued: "How long you stayed in the camp depended on you I guess. Some have their application meetings in a few months and leave the camp and some, like my friend Mevik, had to stay there for years. I have been subjected to all kinds of disctimination. Both from the local people, national auhtorities and the other refugees."

 

'THE SITUATION WAS NOT GOOD'

 

Mohammadi told about the life in the camp and said: ""In general, the situation was not very pleasant. We were waiting in long lines for everything. We were not given enough food, our access to clean water was very limited. We had running water for a few hours a day, despite the Covid- 19 outbreak. We didn't have access to health. Being taken to the hospital was also very problematic. For example, I should have been seeing a psychiatrist regularly. I also have medication I must use. I couldn't make the doctor's appointments and when I was able to go to the hospital 3-4 times, I had to beg for the doctor to prescribe me my medication.  There was no activity at the camp for the women. The children didn't have access to education. Later, in the camp where we did not even have access to water, lessons and activities were blocked due to coronavirus measures.  It was very difficult for us to communicate with people outside the camp. There are not many places where we are allowed to go and even if we managed to leave, we can't even afford the bus fair. Some of us had cellphones but the camp did not let us have access to Wi-Fi all the time and we could only charge our phones for an hour on the weekends. Afghan refugees are the ones who suffer the most all around the world. They live in the harshest possible conditions, if they survive."

 

'THEY WERE ABLE TO GET OUT OF THE DETENTIN CENTER THANKS TO THE FIRE'

 

Stating that he went to the camp twice after he left the camp, Mohammadi said: "Most of my friends were injured as a result of the fire. One of the women had a miscarriage and one couldn't breastfeed her child because she was badly burned. I didn't think it was a devastating fire when I saw it on the news but when I got there I saw that everything had burned. There weren't any measures against a fire anyway. I was very worried about my friends when I heard the news. Especially for those who are in the detention center. They had nowhere to run. I thought if the fire continued a little bit more, everyone would have died. But I was a little happy for those who were in the detention center. They were able to get out thanks to the fire. Their only crime is to be a refugee. They were in the detention center because they are refugees. At least they were able to get out thanks to the fire."

 

DOCTOR OBERREIT: THE CONDITIONS OF THE CAMP WAS NOT SUITABLE TO CONTAIN A PANDEMIC

 

Stephan OberreitÜ Head of mission MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in Greece who was a volunteer at the camp both before the fire and after the fire, conveyed his observations. Underlining that the situation in the camp wasn't suitable even before the fire, Oberreit said the conditions of the camp wasn't suitable to take measures against Covid- 19. 

 

Stating that there was no serious injury due to the fire, Oberreit stated that they generally treated superficial burns. Oberreit said: "But there were about 13 thousand people staying in the camp at that time. We insistantly tell that the camp must be examined once again to make sure no one is left under the wreckage. Basically the Greek Government collaborated well with us. On the other hand we think that as a state, Greece worked with insufficient capacity in terms of medical equipment and didn't have the backbone to assume enough responsibility."

 

'GET THE REFUGEES OFF THIS ISLAND'

 

Sharing the information that the burned down camp area was completely evacuated, Oberreit said: “We cannot say that the new camp has been established completely. Refugees who leave the camp after the fire usually stay on plastic sheets and cardboards, some have small tents. So we can say that there is a accomodation problem. Food delivery also needs to be better adjusted. There is not enough food and water. We do not find it appropriate for these people to stay in these camps after all the trauma they suffered. Our call to the governments is this; get the refugees off the island. Get them to the mainland where they can be better cared for, treated when sick. If there is a new camp to be established on this island, it will be a new Moria Camp. They need to ensure that refugees and asylum seekers live in a more humane and safer environment."

 

 

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