Overcrowded Lesbos migrant camp at tipping point скачать в хорошем качестве

Overcrowded Lesbos migrant camp at tipping point

(26 Sep 2019) There's no room left at Moria camp, Europe's largest refugee facility, on the Greek island of Lesbos. The official site was built to house 3,000 people but currently hosts a record 12,000 – with 7,000 on the hillside sprawl where pre-winter conditions are becoming increasingly desperate. "Moria, has – for the last three years – been facing overcrowding difficult situation. Sometimes that has been easy though large- scale transfers but in the past months, the numbers ave really escalated, " says the spokesperson in Greece for the UN Refugee Agency, Boris Cheshirkov. The new arrivals have to fend for themselves outside its barb-wired perimeter – in a maze of tents, each sprayed with a number in black paint. Afghan migrant Ismutallah Heideri lives in the "800s section," reached by zig-zagging through washing lines, power cords precariously fanning out from a circuit box, and children playing barefoot on the stony ground. He's spent the last 30 nights curled up inside a small tent kept immaculately tidy with his wife, four-year-old daughter, and two sons, aged 13 and one. "Nothing makes sense here," he said, his voice occasionally shaking. "We are all suffering." As Heideri reached Lesbos in late August, the rate of arrivals hit the highest level since a European Union crackdown on migration three years ago. Lesbos and other Greek islands facing Turkey's mainland were used as a physical barrier to Europe's mainland – set up with camps, international coast guard patrols, and new restrictive travel rules. A year ago, Greece quietly relaxed those rules to ease severe camp overcrowding and calm tempers among islanders hurt by the crisis's impact on tourism. Thousands of asylum seekers were ferried to the mainland where the state-run camp network was expanded. But conditions on the islands have steadily worsened and patrols are still unable to stop migrants fleeing war and poverty. "For every meal, for every official paper, for everything here, we have to stand in line. For the showers, to use the toilets, to get food, I have to stand in line for eight hours every day," says Heideri, a 40-year-old construction worker who initially fled to Iran but could not enroll his children in school there. Moria was officially closed to new arrivals at the weekend and the government has promised it would move thousands more to the mainland and use military resources to support coastguard patrols. But local officials are pressing for a more ambitious shift in policy. "We are asking for the evacuation of the islands and for a number to remain that is proportionate to the population (of Lesbos)," Constantinos Moutzouris, regional governor for the North Aegean islands, told the Associated Press. "The most important thing is to have no more arrivals or to drastically reduce the number of arrivals, " he said. Lesbos, Greece's third-largest island, is a magnet for migrant traffickers along the Turkish coast, who aim dingies at the island's flat northern coastline. The transit center at the fishing village of Skala Sikamineas, where the latest arrivals are initially taken and registered, has received dozens of refugee families daily for the past few weeks. Among them, the family of Shere Ka Ka, an Afghan refugee from Baghlan who tried his luck crossing into Greece for the second time. "Around two or maybe six months ago I wanted to come but was afraid the (Turkish) police would have deported me for good if they caught me," he said, adding that raids against Afghan refugees in Turkey have increased in the past months. That rate jumped this summer. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...