Closed borders, full island

Leaders of European member states are set to agree a deal this week that will allow Greece to forcibly return refugees arriving to Greece “illegally” back to Turkey. Illegally means anyone who doesn’t have a visa in their passport. Believe it or not that’s everyone who chooses to put their child in an overloaded rubber boat paying smugglers hundreds of euros, rather than just catching a flight straight from the country they’re fleeing.

The boats that smugglers use, often discarded on beaches or around the port

Many of the refugees we’ve spoken to have spent several months in Turkey, sometimes years, trying to earn enough money to pay smugglers to come to Greece. One young man told me he was working in a clothing factory, another told me he was sorting building materials. We’ve seen several people with wounds or chemical burns from working in what I can only assume are unsafe conditions where Turkish business are profiting from having a vulnerable and captive workforce at their fingertips. There are reports of Turkish authorities forcibly pushing refugees back into Syria, in direct contravention of international law. Along with mismanaged camps with little or no sanitation, medical care, unreliable food distribution, as well a punitive policies regarding refugees right to work in Turkey, many refugees say that there simply isn’t any kind of life on offer in Turkey. Amnesty International and other organizations are campaigning to block this decision which will ignore basic human rights and international law. While politicians talk, more and more people are trying to leave Turkey before the borders shut completely.  

This decision will follow the complete closure of the Balkan route which happened abruptly last week without any warning. There are now around 45,000 refugees stranded in Greece. Over 13,000 are in Idomeni at the border between Macedonia (FRYOM) and Greece. The situation there is worse than Calais. A baby was born in a tent last week. Doctors are treating trench foot. There is limited food distribution, difficulty for independent volunteers and NGOs to access people, no sanitation and around 40% of those waiting at the border are children.

When I came out to Chios, I was completely unsure about what I would face when I arrived. I didn’t predict that decisions made at the drop of a hat by small minded politicians would have such direct impact on the situation here. Overnight, last week, the numbers of people needing care have skyrocketed.  We’ve had a really intense time the past couple of weeks which is why the blog has been a bit quiet. Luckily we have a new Farsi translator Fatieh who is a complete badass political refugee from Iran. She worked with the refugee council and women’s aid in England for many years and decided to spend some of her retirement translating in the field! Our coordinator Claire, rewarded us with a full weekend off this weekend and my amazing hubby jetted in with a days notice to be with me for 2 nights! I now I feel totally refreshed and ready to hit the ground running for the last 2 and a half weeks. It seems from all sides things are going to get worse for refugees here and we will have to expand our operation to even try to meet the need.

Resourceful Fatieh making sure she gets a cuppa!

The ferry companies have been extremely limited in the number of tickets they can sell to refugees with some days only 50 people leaving the island. Last weds night 31 boats with around 900 people arrived on Chios in ONE night. At the moment I think there are around 1600 refugees on Chios but that doesn’t take into account any arrivals from the weekend as I haven’t been up to date with the numbers. More and more camps are opening up on Chios to try and accommodate people as they get stranded here, unable to leave to Athens or have any other route off the island. Now the ability for this island to provide adequate housing, sanitation, food distribution and medical care for these people is limited. We are the only team able to provide care outside of Souda and Vial camps which have permanent clinics which are always staffed.  All of the people in the other camps have to wait for us to come with the Medibus (which we cannot predictably time) to see a doctor. The usefulness of the Medibus has really been proven in the past couple of weeks. On weds we saw 95 patients, on thurs 83 and I think the past 7 days we saw over 450 in total. We’ve been opening a bit later in the evenings to try and fulfil the need but it never ends.

We haven’t analysed the data for the past 2 weeks yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of our consultations were women or children. We asked anyone who wasn’t desperately sick to step aside when we arrived at the other camps and all the young men with coughs and colds dispersed. Consultations are taking longer, people are sicker, they’re staying for more time on Chios so need follow up and I’m seeing the same patients every day and hoping they don’t get sicker. Tensions are rising in the camp and especially between Syrians and Afghanis. I think a lot of Syrians feel that they will have the right to cross the border because their war is still happening and if it weren’t for the numbers of Afghani’s there would be no problem. There’s a high level of denial about the situation amongst all refugees and people just can’t comprehend that Europe would leave people waiting in a field hoping they’ll turn back. Most people still think heading to Athens is their best bet but we’re trying to caution those who have chronic health needs to think about what could happen if they don’t have a spot in the limited camps.

Tabakika camp, an abandonned warehouse essentially open to the elements housing around 400 people

Despite everyone’s best intentions were seeing full dirty nappies with subsequent horrific nappy rash and a lack of clean nappies for Mum’s. We’re seeing impossibly hungry babies whose mother’s breast milk has dried up due to stress or malnutrition. We’re seeing old poorly healed wounds that I never want to ask how they were sustained because I know hearing the story will leave me shaken and find it difficult to treat the next patient. We’re seeing bad pneumonias, bronchiolitic babies and tonnes of diarrhoea and vomiting and I don’t know if they’ll get better or worse. I’m seeing many people without their normal insulin or diabetic medication who are struggling to control their sugars with the erratic eating patterns. I’m seeing SO many pregnant women, most of them in the third trimester and no one had a plan for where they would give birth. We’re seeing many women who feel the baby isn’t moving as much as normal especially after the boat journey, and I can refer them for a scan at the hospital but then what…

Despite all this, I love this island, I love the team I’m working with and I love my patients.  I love the tenacity of a 14 year old boy strolling into my clinic and telling me he has a cough and needs some syrup because he’s keeping everyone awake at night. I love the way that Syrians say no to something, it's like a click of your teeth and move your head upwards in an upside down nod. I love that it costs 2 euros for chicken souvlaki from Nicolas’s. I love the way that when we managed to explain we could only see emergencies all the young men left the queue and made way for pregnant women and children. I love that when it rains 20 minutes later there’s bright sunshine. I loved seeing a desperately sick boy I sent to hospital playing by the beach 2 days later. I love that when I walk into the camp in the morning people run up to me to show me the rash has gone or the cough is better. I love that when it rains everyone gets a poncho and if they’re giving out blue ones its like there’s a camp full of smurfs. I love that a 7 month old smiles at anyone and has no awareness of how bad things are around them. I love that every single Greek person I've met here has been warm and welcoming and thankful for what we're doing here. I love being able to be in the presence of such admirable people who show such bravery and determination to find a better life for themselves and their family.

List of countries refugees can apply to all of them for asylum and will get randomly allocated to one. They then will get direct transfer by flight to this country if asylum is granted. For vulnerable people but many are skeptical and don't want to sign up as they are heading to a country where they are trying to reach family. 

 

It worries me how seeing a child without shoes has become normal, that seeing kids use piles of life jackets as a playground is funny and walking into the camp feels homely. I asked a bright 11-year-old Syrian girl when was the last time she went to school. She thought for a moment and said “I can’t remember”. This is not acceptable. We all need to think what it means to be European in this time and how we want history to remember our generation. Hold your leaders to account. Express your disgust at this policy made humanitarian disaster and demand Safe Passage Now.

New recruits helping with the workload!