Lesvos and the refugees - the other side of the coin?

Monday, 03 October 2022 08:07
Written by Portal Editor

Everyone probably still remembers the images that went around the world from Lesvos during the first refugee crisis. We will not renew these images in our heads, not even here in the travel portal in the News category!

But we will also not forget what is happening to the people, the actual victims of the conflicts of interest, as a result of the armed conflicts between the powers of this world.

And not that the conflicts in Syria could be resolved and that the people have become a little smarter, perhaps have learned from them and no longer allow themselves to be so closely tied to the economic and power interests of some potentates, things are already moving on in Europe. Another potentate who thinks he can arrange the world according to his own plans. Is it fantasy or wishful thinking that the West, which is not entirely innocent of what is happening in the world, actually believed in sayings like “change through trade”? Or was it, once again, the entanglements of politics with business that led us to believe that people today are less selfish and profit-seeking? And the next potentate is already in the starting blocks. It's a tragedy what "society" puts together in such a way that man and his environment are doing away with themselves, it doesn't really need any additional accelerators.

Refugee dramas on Lesbos as well as elsewhere

From the spring of 2015, several hundred refugees arrived every day on the island of Lesbos, as on some of the neighboring islands, especially Kos, the majority of them as war refugees from Syria. They were brought to the island from Turkey by 'people with boats'. In September 2015, around 11,000 people were waiting to be allowed to travel to mainland Greece. The island gained international media attention as a symbol of the refugee crisis in Europe.

Balkan route closed to refugees

After the Balkan route was largely closed and Turkey took measures to prevent illegal migration from Turkey to the EU, significantly fewer refugees landed on Lesvos by the summer of 2019. But in July and August 2019, around 12,000 people landed in boats on the Greek islands. As of August, the Moria refugee camp on Lesvos was overcrowded, four times its capacity. In September, Yannis Balpakakis, who had headed the camp since 2016, resigned. At the end of January 2020, 19,000 people were already counted in Moria, which was only designed for 3,000 refugees. This makes Moria Europe's largest refugee camp. To keep more boats out, a floating protection system has been announced off the east coast of the island.

Undesirable migrants and helpers

In the course of the Syrian civil war, the Turkish government opened the borders to refugees in February and March 2020 after the breach of the EU-Turkey agreement, which led to an increase in the number of refugees going to Lesbos as well. As a result, Greece closed its land borders with Turkey. Arriving refugees, journalists, police officers and members of aid organizations who were on Lesvos after the opening of the borders were attacked with impunity. On March 1, Athens suspended the right to asylum for 30 days and the local police department informed the refugees who had arrived since then that they were “undesirable migrants” and would be deported.