One of the hallmarks of Heraclitus’ philosophy is flux – panta rhei, everything flows, nothing ever remains the same. A concept that over time has become associated with the metaphor of a flowing river, which cannot be stepped into more than once. Even if the river’s identity, marked by its name, is immutable, it never remains the same. This ancient Greek theorem has been confirmed again and again for us on Leros. Every time we returned to the small Aegean island in the past years, we found it changed. Nothing ever remained the same and par force, we had to change as well, embrace the flux, and adapt to the ever-evolving situation in order to stay afloat.
But let’s go back to the beginning: The first ECHO100PLUS volunteer team arrived on Leros in the autumn of 2015. We, the organization’s founders, had learned about the crisis on Leros from the media and from a quick visit a few weeks earlier. The small island, a few sea miles off the Turkish coast, was one of the Greek islands most affected by a huge influx of refugees arriving by sea. That summer, daily arrivals from Turkey amounted to hundreds and the local authorities were by no means prepared to deal with the situation. While the police were checking IDs and issuing travel papers, refugees were provisionally accommodated on the municipal dump (!) in Lakki port. It was largely the island’s civil society that guaranteed their physical and mental well-being; individuals and members of grassroot initiatives tirelessly prepared sandwiches, cooked meals, handed out clothes, entertained children of distressed parents, took people to the hospital, and comforted the ones who had lost loved ones while fleeing.
It was these people, islanders and tourists alike, who inspired us to get involved. We organized the first team of volunteers to come to Leros and support their endeavors. We expected this to be a temporary mission lasting maybe a few weeks. But more than seven years have gone by and over 750 volunteers from across the globe have come to support our mission, a mission that was shaped by the flux while never changing its core identity - solidarity: Solidarity with Greece, a fellow EU member state, that at the time received but little support to deal with the refugee influx; solidarity with the small island’s population, who lived with the human tragedies on a daily basis; and last but most importantly, solidarity with the arriving refugees, who had risked everything for a life in peace and freedom.
Over the years, tens of thousands of people have been in transit on Leros, some stayed for days, others for years. At times there were no or very few refugees on the island, at other times the refugee community accounted for one-third of the island’s population. And whereas in the beginning, the authorities were totally dependent on the support of civil society, they gradually gained control by implementing standardized official policies and structures designed and financed by the EU. Later millions of EU money flowed into Greece and dozens of legal amendments were issued in order to promote systematic response mechanisms that are mainly defined by border security including the performance of illegal pushbacks and deterrence. Today, Leros houses a so-called CCAC or Closed Controlled Access Center, which can accommodate up to 2500 asylum-seekers
Still, for a long time, these two approaches – let’s call them the bureaucratic and the humanitarian approach – existed alongside each other, with humanitarians (both in- and outside of the system) constantly striving to find the cracks through which the individual refugee could be reached and cared for. Sometimes this meant providing food or warm blankets, other times it was about getting winter clothes, hygiene items, or medicine to the camp residents – literally, thousands of individuals have benefitted from our distributions over the years. But closest to our heart was certainly our ECHO HUB, a small community center in town, where camp residents could join educational and recreational activities in order to do something meaningful while waiting for their papers to materialize. The HUB was a happy place. People of different origins, cultures, and religions could meet and learn from each other, join a language, art, and computer class or play on the basketball or football team. It was a place where the focus was on the individual, where the degrading conditions of the camp and the European asylum policies could be forgotten for a few hours. Most of our former HUB students moved on a long time ago. The majority has left Greece and is now living and working in Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc. They keep telling us how much the HUB experience has helped them to start a new life and integrate into their respective societies. Some regularly donate to our organization, some have even returned to Greece to volunteer with us.
For the time being the bureaucratic approach has won. Everything to do with the management – from providing residents with the basics such as food and accommodation to the examination of their asylum applications – now happens behind the camp’s barbed wire fences in a remote ‘non-place’ far from the public eye. Civil society is not supposed to come into contact with refugees anymore and is systematically shut out. We had to close our HUB already a year ago, and we are also in the process of winding up our clothes distribution. Showing solidarity with refugees has become impossible on Leros. – With a heavy heart, we have therefore decided to leave the island for good and instead focus our efforts on our integration projects in Athens. We would like to sincerely thank all of you who have inspired us, participated and engaged with our work as volunteers, and supported us through donations. None of our work on Leros would have been possible without you! As our work in Greece is not over yet and we will continue to fulfill our mission in Athens, we still rely on your support.
Wishing you all the very best for the festive season and a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year!
It is a few months since we closed our Educational Hub and the so-called Boutique on Leros island. The reasons for the shutdown were mentioned in our last report: With a new CCAC (‘Closed Controlled Access Center’) in place of the old Hotspot camp and with tightened asylum procedures taking effect, it no longer made sense to sustain the cost-intensive infrastructure that we had set up over the past seven years. Although heavy-heartedly packing up and putting our refugee integration efforts in Athens even more into focus seemed to be the way forward. Since then, we are trying to stick to this prospect. But instead of seeing Leros gradually disappear into the depth of our rear-view mirror, it turns out that the safety warning usually sticking to those looking back devices in cars, proves right: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”. Thus, instead of becoming part of the memory lane, Leros keeps following us, or rather, keeps calling us back.
After two very quiet years, the island has recently experienced quite a few refugee arrivals. Most of them are transfers from other islands, people who have been rescued from sea distress on their way to Italy. Due to ongoing pushbacks, refugees are now trying to avoid applying for asylum in Greece. To date, the CCAC Leros is accommodating c. 300 asylum seekers. This doesn't seem a lot compared to the past years, but the turnover of arrivals and departures is now much quicker. In most cases, asylum applications are rejected since Turkey has been declared a safe third country for the majority of refugees, but at least people are no longer held in these island camps forever. Nevertheless, all of them need to be supplied with a basic set of clothes upon arrival, as they have usually lost everything. And after having been screened by doctors and camp authorities other needs occur: hygiene items such as diapers, sanitary pads, infant vaccinations, scabies remedy, lice shampoo, bedsheets, towels, etc. - The EU has spent millions on the construction and security of these island prison camps but hasn't provided a budget for the very basic everyday needs of their residents. And the Greek government doesn't provide either; apparently, items like the above-mentioned are considered an unnecessary luxury.
Also in the past, it was NGOs and private initiatives, that supplied camp residents with those items, but now that most of these organizations had been driven away by adverse governmental policies, a huge gap in provision occurs on the islands. While decision takers are sitting at their desks in far-away Athens or Brussels not considering the consequences on the ground, the camp staff is desperate, as they have to deal with the camp residents' frustration on a daily base. Camp staff, therefore, continues to ask us for help and in the past weeks, we have provided dozens of boxes with clothes and the above-mentioned hygiene items. Certainly, we can no longer organize dignified distributions, but at least we can provide some of the most needed items to the camp administration, who then distribute them inside the camp.
The decision to keep our storage space for some additional months, before shipping its remaining content to another island, has therefore proven to be a blessing. While continuing to supply the camp, we keep pressing the camp staff to push and better communicate their needs to the government. Whether these pleads will be heard is certainly questionable. So far, the ‘Nea Demokratia’ government prides itself on having solved the so-called refugee crisis, yes, trying to make it appear as a thing of the past which gets affirmed by the silence of the media. However, the fact is that the 'decongestion of the Greek islands' is dependent on the ongoing systematic pushbacks performed by the Hellenic police and coast guard. Despite the persistent denial of these practices, they can, unfortunately, be encountered daily. Either the refugee dinghies are intercepted at sea and towed back into Turkish waters - not without having destroyed their engines before, or people are captured on land and taken back and abandoned at sea in flimsy life rafts hereby putting their lives in danger. Most recently, a group of nine people, among them unaccompanied minors, had been forcefully removed from Leros after having spent hours in hiding in a dilapidated building.
Humanitarian organizations such as ‘Aegean Boat Report’ that is working tirelessly to collect and publish evidence on these illegal actions are regularly accused by the government of slander, trying to nihilate the existence of these practices and consequently also of these desperate people seeking refuge. We have no words for this, but can only advise the Greek government and its agents, to fully face their responsibility and find sustainable and humane solutions. If not, these ‘objects’ that now appear to be distant, will again get closer and - who knows - might even overtake one day.
Recent events in Ukraine have certainly shocked us all! Countless people have lost their homes, personal belongings, and beloved ones. They have witnessed and experienced unbelievable atrocities such as executions and rapes, and with people still fighting or simply trying to survive in the country, the war is far from over yet. Those who have managed to escape deserve all the support we can give them and fortunately a lot of solidarity is happening as fellow citizens spontaneously open their hearts and homes to those in need. And even governments with notoriously strict asylum policies such as Austria and Poland have set all machinery in motion to help refugees quickly and efficiently. Within days refugees are registered and given access to accommodation, social security, financial support, education, and work permits. Obviously, this is what is needed right now, a lot more will be necessary for the aftermath of this horrible and unnecessary war with yet unforeseeable consequences. A big part of the country's infrastructure has been destroyed, and the wounds on bodies and souls will take years if not forever to heal.
The events described have certainly overshadowed the situation of refugees stuck or still arriving on the Greek islands such as Leros, and considering the acuteness of the crisis in Ukraine, rightly so. But they also uncannily echo the experiences of those who arrived in Greece from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Eritrea, or Kongo to name just a few war- and crisis-ridden countries. The very same Russian army that is currently raging in Ukraine, committed numerous war crimes in Syria. Even the commander in chief of the murderous 64th Separate Motor Rifle brigade responsible for mass killings and systematic rapes in Aleppo in Syria is the same one who recently stroke in Burtscha in Ukraine. – To be fair one has to mention that there was a moment of solidarity with people escaping the Syrian war in 2015, but this moment has long passed. EU borders are now tightly closed and refugees from the aforementioned countries are systematically and brutally pushed back. This year alone, we had 203 cases of pushbacks at sea, which means 4,692 lives were put at risk by Greek and European authorities. And thus, these people ask us: Why do our lives not matter? Why is it that the EU is so much more compassionate with Ukrainian refugees? How come the social and legal integration of Ukrainians is a matter of a few weeks while our lives are put on hold for years?
For a humanitarian worker focusing on the individual, it is certainly difficult to answer these questions. We do not label a person in need according to skin color, religion, or nationality, but try to assess her vulnerability and see how we can help to restore basic dignity and agency. Governmental bodies and the EU as such on the other hand do differentiate or rather discriminate by these criteria, no matter whether these individuals have experienced atrocities comparable to the ones now happening in Ukraine, no matter whether those arriving are still for a large part children and minors. This is certainly unfair and inhumane! – We see and know that the majority of those arriving on the Greek islands have gone through terrible things and still they are given a very different treatment; a treatment that leaves them in a state of insecurity and further traumatizes them. It is hard to imagine, that a single European politician would plead to accommodate a Ukrainian refugee in a Greek Hotspot camp.
In our last report, we described the opening of the new C.C.A.C (Closed Controlled Access Centre) on Leros and the so-called fast-track asylum policies, implemented in 2019 by the new Greek government and now followed by the authorities. Due to the pushbacks, few people have managed to arrive in Greece since then. For those who arrived on Leros – 170 people since December – the registration and asylum procedures start after a 2-weeks quarantine period. Once released from it, medical screenings and the interviews with First Reception, EASO, Frontex, etc. are performed. Following the new protocol, a first decision is usually given after one week – in most cases, it is a rejection, as decisions are taken very quickly and Turkey is considered a safe country for the majority of asylum seekers arriving. There is then a two-week time window within which this first rejection can be challenged, all too often without any legal assistance or interpreter. Depending on the outcome of the second decision, which usually comes after 40 days, now recognized refugees are allowed to leave the island to the mainland or – if the negative decision is confirmed – the respective person is arrested and transferred to the closed pre-deportation camp on Kos. From there the unwanted ones are supposedly returned to Turkey, or to their country of origin. – Although tough, one has to admit that the fast-track procedures are at least speeding up things and people are not left in limbo for months or years without a decision. But there are certainly leaks in the system: Foremost it is more than questionable whether Turkey can be considered a safe third country, but irrespective of this, Turkey (and many other countries) do not even accept returns from Greece. This yet leads to another kind of limbo, as these people are either endlessly kept in pre-deportation camps or – left without papers – become prey to human traffickers again. And even for the people who receive protection status in Greece, there is still a long, long way to social and economic integration, because once accepted there is hardly any governmental support. People all too often end up homeless. Athens’ streets bear witness to this.
The new camp and the now implemented procedures have led to a very different situation on Leros: arrivals are scarce, and the time spent on the island is now too short to benefit from any integration services. With a heavy heart, we have therefore decided to close our ECHO HUB on Leros. A safe space outside the camp where people are able to acquire new skills, learn a language, do sports, or simply relax, is no longer needed. This decision has been a difficult one, as the ECHO HUB on Leros has been such a special place! Six years of operations have certainly helped hundreds of people to make their minimum 1-year stay on the island more bearable and productive. Hundreds have experienced a welcoming and friendly environment, that at least partly restored their humanity and prepared them for their next steps. Hundreds have learned a new language or skill, which further helped them find employment on the islands or on the mainland. Hundreds of volunteers coming from all over the world to small Leros had the chance to meet these people and get a first-hand experience of the so-called refugee crisis and the humanitarian response to it. Many of these continue to help refugees in their own countries and keep supporting our projects in Greece. It has been an enriching and extremely valuable time and we thank you all for your support! Without your trust and solidarity, this project would not have been possible!
However, despite the closing of the HUB, ECHO100PLUS will maintain a presence on the island and the staff working in the C.C.A.C., which is now inaccessible to us, will keep us informed of people's needs. For the time being, we are keeping our clothes storage as new arrivals are usually in need of clothes and we continue to supply camp residents with hygiene items, and necessary medication. These services are still vital and we, therefore, continue to need your solidarity and financial support, as the rent of our storage space needs to be paid, medication and hygiene items need to be bought. But foremost, we strongly ask you to not forget the refugees arriving in Greece and to keep in mind, that there is a lesson to be learned from the humanitarian response to the 2022 Ukrainian crisis: This fast and efficient response should actually be the standard for receiving refugees in Europe – we have now proved that this is possible. Please let political leaders and policies not divide our compassion and solidarity with people in need, no matter where they come from!
On November 27th, the new, so-called ‘Multi-purpose Reception and Identification Center’ opened on Leros. After Samos and Kos, it is the third camp of its kind on an Aegean island, two more – one on Lesbos, one on Chios – are expected to open in 2022. These new camps are Europe’s response to the catastrophic and inhumane living conditions for migrants in the overcrowded and dilapidated Hotspot camps, where catered food was horrible and medical care insufficient, where rats were nibbling on babies’ toes at night, and children as young as 8-years attempted to end their lives. “No more Morias!” was the slogan that fired the in-total 250-million-Euro project initiated by the EU. So far so good. No question, that the old island camps needed replacement. But judging by the appearance of the new ones, we seem to be in for more of the same: Located in remote places, these camps are made up of lots of concrete and barbed wire fence, rows of uniform plastic containers, that with time and use will look exactly the same as the ones that are now disposed of. The high costs, in the case of Leros, more than 30 million, can therefore only be justified by the technical equipment: cameras for the 24/7 surveillance of the public and the so-called private areas, high-tech check-out barriers, drones surveying the camp from above, floodlighting, etc. These camps might improve living conditions, but foremost they highlight Europe’s new approach to migration: the militarization of borders including the performance of illegal push-backs, criminalization of migrants, and systematic exclusion of newcomers rather than their integration. Europe has opted to become a fortress where human rights (the right to free movement, access to medical care, education and legal support, etc.) only apply to people living within its borders. Whoever else and for whatever reason dares to cross these borders, will be marked as an outcast and locked away in high-tech prison sites, unless s/he has the means to pay for a Golden Visa.
The cynicism of EC Vice-president Schinas calling the day of the opening of the ‘MPRIC’ on Leros a ‘historic day’, could therefore hardly be surpassed. Alternatives to detention are possible and have in fact been in place until a year ago, such as the NGO-run PIKPA, or the ESTIA accommodation programs that housed vulnerable asylum seekers outside the camps. – Leros is full of vacant housing, unused apartments, or even bigger edifices like the former Italian army barracks and the huge and now empty mental hospital building, that could have been restored and adapted for lesser money. These investments would not only have benefitted the migrants but also the island’s infrastructure and hence the locals. – Yes, the 27th of November was a historic day, because a historic chance had been missed!
However, in the meantime, the 57 remaining asylum seekers on Leros have been moved to the new camp, escorted by c. 300 security personnel, who have been hired to guard them (perhaps in anticipation of a blackout that would paralyze the electronic surveillance system). It was a pitiful and ridiculous sight! – The week before, we managed to supply all asylum seekers with winter clothes and hygiene packs. This was for sure the last of the many distributions we performed this year. Whether we can continue to support asylum seekers in the new year, remains doubtful. The local authorities are not very communicative when it comes to planning the future, partly because they do not know themselves. Will the illegal pushbacks performed by the Hellenic Coast Guard stop and boat refugees will start to arrive again? Will camps be used to accommodate so-called illegal migrants that are sent back to Greece from other EU countries? Will all denied asylum applicants, and there are a lot of them in Greece, be forever parked in these camps, as Turkey doesn’t take them back? And providing, the new camp will one day be full, will NGOs like us be given access to the people to provide needed services?
In any case, the inauguration of the new camp was a sad day for our team as it felt like a final stroke to our 6-year engagement on the island. When we came to Leros in October 2015, we were prepared for a short stay. We had planned to temporarily support the islanders who had to deal with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis; we had strived to fill the gaps until authorities were ready to provide decent reception facilities for people in wait, but somehow these gaps never seemed to close and we kept extending our stay. Over the years thousands of clothes, shoes, hygiene items, diapers, blankets, sleeping bags were distributed, innumerable language and computer classes taught, ping-pong, basketball, and football matches played, but foremost our team of volunteers provided time, empathy, and solidarity, things that money can’t buy and that will therefore always remain a gap. In hindsight, it turns out that our operations were always based on the wrong expectations. Quite obviously, the governing bodies had never planned to fill any of these gaps. However, with its new migration policy, the EU has reached a preliminary low point. and keeps undermining its own values and ideals, or at least, what they once called their values and ideals.
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Since our last report in May, the number of asylum seekers in the Leros Hotspot Camp has further diminished. On the one hand, no new refugees made it across the heavily guarded Greek sea border; on the other hand, all asylum applicants with a positive asylum decision were gradually evacuated to the mainland. The few families remaining on Leros to date all have a negative asylum decision and are now stuck in legal limbo. Greece does not accept them as refugees, considering Turkey to be a safe country for them, and Turkey does not accept any returns from Greece. Understandingly, none of these individuals was too keen to join our HUB programs – the lack of perspective leaves them too desperate to even think about joining a recreational activity or studying a new language that they might never need. Also, none of the camp residents were yet given the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID-19, which gives the authorities the right to keep them confined and one needs a very good reason to be able to leave the camp premises.
For our small volunteer team there was little to do except of marking a presence on the island in order to reassure these families that they are not completely forgotten. The past months were therefore dedicated to the distribution of non-food and hygiene items that were purchased with the support of some generous donors and grants we had recently received: Like in the previous year, we conducted a big summer clothes distribution in our HUB garden and not in our so-called ‘Boutique’ in order to stick to COVID regulations. With the support of the CARE UK Charity - RENEW, we were able to purchase 18 baby strollers that were given to families with small children; also, we continued to regularly distribute our COVID-Kits, consisting of a supply of masks, hand-sanitizer and soap, to keep everybody safe. Fortunately, no camp resident was infected with COVID so far, despite lots of international tourists and a significant number of COVID cases on the island. The Leros hospital was supplied with another load of COVID rapid tests and necessary vaccines for newborn babies in the camp. In addition, each pregnant woman received a Baby-Kit containing clothes for the newborn, diapers, baby wipes, and whatever needed for post-partum hygiene. COVID-tests, vaccines, baby-kits were bought with the generous donation of the German Order of St. George and the Malteser Hilfsdienst. Two volunteers from the Austrian charity ‘Doro Blancke’ visited us on Leros and bought urgently needed mosquito repellant and sunscreen for all camp residents. And last but not least, the TUI Care Foundations supplied all residents with sun caps, sandals and hand-sanitizer.
Eventually, we decided that under these circumstances it no longer made sense to maintain our infrastructure and invite new volunteers to the island. With our ATHENS HUB in place and a lot of unmet needs in the capital, it seemed more logical to shift our focus and enforce our activities and integration programs there. The plan was to just keep our storage and run necessary distributions with the help of a mobile team and our local volunteers. - By the end of July, we were ready to pack up and – after almost six years – say goodbye to Leros, but then two things happened: The situation in Afghanistan escalated and we saw thousands of people trying to escape the country. Despite the deterring rhetoric of Greek politicians assuring the world and themselves, that they were not going to accept any more refugees, we decided to wait and see how things turn out over the next weeks. We don't expect Afghani refugees immediately, but it might well be that in a few weeks' time, some Afghani refugees will arrive. And another thing happened: In late August, Greece opened its border for Turkish tourists, who had so far been banned due to COVID restrictions. Last week, we all of a sudden had three boats with refugees from Iraq, Sierra Leone and Somalia arriving on some random islands close to Leros, and about 100 of them were transferred to Leros where they are now quarantined in a separate area of the camp. Whether these boats signal the start of a new wave of arrivals, which can – at this point – not be pushed back so easily anymore, is hard to predict, but for the time being, we will maintain our infrastructure on Leros, say hello and handle yet another new development.
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