New deal, New disaster

The new deal continues to be enforced. This week we had strong winds and big waves so as far as we know no boats have arrived on Chios. Many of the locals are saying that Tuesday will be D-day as very calm nights are predicted and we know for sure there are many waiting to come. Either they don’t believe the borders are closed, have been lied to by smugglers or are convinced its still better to live in detention in Europe than suffer the conditions in Turkey.

We know someone who’s working with an independent organization in Turkey and she reports around 2000 people hiding in the “jungle” near the coast of Turkey. There is literally nothing there in terms of infrastructure. People are sleeping rough on the floor, no toilets, no food and no shelter. They have to evade the Turkish coastguards and now more than ever so reliant on smugglers to keep them “safe”. One of the Greek municipality workers told me that the smuggling network in Turkey had to date earned billions of euros in profit, much of which is linked to low level corruption of coastguards etc and high level corruption of government officials. Smuggling people to Europe is big business but so is the EU money flooding into Turkey. Turkey needs to simultaneously sustain its smuggling networks whilst showing it is suppressing them to continue to benefit from 2 revenue streams. I’ve never felt more disillusioned in our global political process.

Yesterday was a national holiday in Greece so we were asked by the Greek MdM team to cover their shift in Vial. Vial which used to be the registration centre is now detention centre. Any refugees that arrive “irregularly” are detained here and we have no idea what their fate will be. They are allowed to apply for asylum and family reunification but we have been told that currently Vial can only process 3 asylum claims per day. This poster was put up overnight in the camp and explains that refugees who are awaiting asylum claims will not be allowed to leave Vial.

Sign in Arabic, Farsi and English

Lots of volunteers, and other NGO workers I’d spoken to had said Vial was really awful and before I went to Vial, I was quite nervous about how it would feel to be working inside a militarised detention centre. I think because I’d worked in a heavily militarized context in Slovenia, the camp here in Greece seemed relatively ok to me. Yes, there are many issues and also it’s a completely unsustainably situation but compared to Slovenia I still felt there was some respect for the people detained there. The police and army officials here are still Greek which means they are relaxed about everything. I haven’t seen any guns, and there is a very limited security presence actually inside the camp. In Slovenia, as I explained before you couldn’t move without bumping into a gigantic heavily armed solider wearing a balaclava. At the moment things seem calm but who know what will happen as people become more agitated.

Entrance of Vial

Now don’t get me wrong. The situation is horrific. The exact same population we were seeing before, young families, over 40% are children, disabled people, over 65s are locked inside the camp with little information and no idea when their cases will be processed. The actual structure is pretty horrendous, it’s split into 2 parts, a huge warehouse with a leaky roof and separate shipping containers that house around 10 people in each, most seem to have bunk beds but some just have wooden pallets with foam sheets to sleep on. There is a large fence separating the 2 areas and at night its locked. Food is distributed 3 times a day and seems to be hot meals but it’s done in one location where everyone has to queue. Volunteers have said that refugees are hungry and many aren’t getting fed properly, the old and infirm are reliant on others to get their food for them. There are showers and access to wifi is available and generally the camp is clean from what we saw.

Line for food distributions (you can only see half of the line and this was half way through the distribution) I think it takes over an hour to queue for the food

The administration and health clinics are in the warehouse side so I’m not sure how access to medical services is organised overnight. There is 24/7 cover with medical NGOs providing care and in fact there’s a strange situation of many different health care providers. The MdM clinic is next to a red cross clinic, which is next to a WAHA clinic which is next to a Greek Army medic clinic. All of them work at different times to ensure a 24/7 service but there are often clinics running simultaneously.

One of the issues I saw yesterday was overmedication with patients able to see many different doctors and clinics over and over again. Seeing the doctor is an activity and gives the refugees something to do to counter the boredom and frustration of being locked up for no reason. Many just come to vent and tell their story again. We heard many people repeating their list of health complaints and asking how it was ok for them to be locked up. We also heard many complaints against the organisers of the camp, many people feel they have no route for information. Who do they get clothes, blankets and nappies from? I couldn’t answer these questions and when I tried to find out I felt as lost as the refugees.

Another big problem is the tension between the Syrians and the Afghanis. On Thursday there was a big fight between two groups involving women and children as well. One Syrian came to the clinic to get a wound on his head redressed. He said that they had “made up” but throughout the day we heard everyone complaining about everyone else. The Afghans push in front of the line for food, the Syrians have all the shelters with beds… These people have only been detained for 1 week at the moment and tensions will continue to mount as their situation because more desperate. The WAHA team which works night shifts have had to leave the camp on several occasions because of security concerns when the refugees tried to protest against being detained.

"Locked" entrance Greek style

Working in this context as a doctor is so challenging. I really struggled to discuss people’s cases without being able to offer any solace of when things would be resolved. I had one family come to see me because the father was losing sight in his right eye. He had glaucoma and had already lost sight in the left and over the past 5 months it was progressing rapidly. He was concerned he would leave his 5 children with a blind father. As we talked both him and his wife broke down in tears and begged us to help them leave the centre. It was truly heart-breaking and I have organised for him to see an ophthalmologist next week but he’ll be taken by police escort and marched around like a prisoner. It’s hard not to feel complicit in the system when you’re providing care in this setting.

I also really struggled with another patient. An 8-year-old boy who was brought by his older brother. They had fled the Taliban and had been travelling to Europe in search of answers about the boy’s condition. He was very weak and often fell over and couldn’t stand from sitting. It only took me a few minutes examining him and listening to the story before I realised the boy most likely had muscular dystrophy and my heart fell into my stomach. I thought for a long time how to tell them and explain what could happen and realised there was no solution for them. Anywhere else they’d be urgently referred to a paediatrician for muscle biopsies and genetic tests then put in touch with support networks and physiotherapy, but here all I could do is explain what I thought the diagnosis was. It was the hardest consultation I’ve done in Greece and when both of them started crying I could hardly hold back the tears. I’ve informed UNHCR and all the officials I could find of their situation but no one could give me any concrete steps to take to help them.  

Still nice moments in the clinic, continuing to provide a humanitarian space

I spoke to an EASO official who said once the relocation program starts again we should be ready with a list of vulnerable people to be at the top of the queue. I thought about the patients I’d seen yesterday and couldn’t begin to triage who was most vulnerable. Everyone is fleeing extreme violence or terrible situations. There are so many pregnant women, so many small children, so many disabled people and so many needing urgent follow up in proper hospitals. There’s young men trying to reach their families and make something of their lives which are only just beginning and yet so wrought with tragedy.

Currently, in Souda there’s one family who arrived before the deal who had made it to Athens and registered for relocation but the rest of their family arrived the night after the deal went live. This half have been placed in Vial. The family travelled back to Chios to try and be reunited with them and are now waiting indefinitely to hear news or be able to see their family in Vial.

Wembley stadium has a capacity of 90,000 people. Every weekend 90,000 people go and come back to see football matches and watch concerts. Its not that many people in the grand scheme of things and London’s infrastructure absorbs it easily. Just over half this number of people are stuck in Greece, in makeshifts camps, in squalid conditions, in detention centers and a handful in hospitals and hotels. This is not some unmanageable problem. This is not some scary flood of people banging at the door of England to come claim £75/week in benefits. This is just half a stadium of people that has been forgotten and completely abandoned in their most vulnerable and needy time. This could be managed in a humane and sensible way if the political will was there. Shame on Europe.