Helping out on Lesbos
DW correspondent Gemima Harvey spent a month on the Greek island of Lesbos as a volunteer helping out desperate refugees in desperate conditions.
Left in the lurch
The effects of the new EU-Turkey deal are already being felt on Lesbos. On the weekend of March 20, NGOs were expelled from the Moria registration site, which is destined to become a closed detention center. UNHCR spokesperson Boris Cheshirkov said, "The detention of refugees would not comply with international standards and the UNHCR is in principle opposed to closed facilities."
Routine for locals
Pulling people from the sea has become routine for Lesbos locals. Elefteria Vamvoukou runs the thermal baths at Eftalou and has baby bottles and nappies ready for the refugees arriving from across the Aegean Sea. "Tiny, tiny babies come with their mothers in the boats," she told DW. "We know what it’s like for these people because our parents or grandparents came to Lesbos as refugees in 1922."
Proud to help
Syrian refugees Nidal and Birhip arrived by boat early one morning at Skala Sikaminias, a small fishing village in the north of Lesbos. On the perilous crossing from Turkey, they were packed in with more than 50 other people. Volunteers like Shino and Gus are eager to help these resilient men. Gus shows off his new tattoo - a family fleeing with "welcome" written in both Arabic and Farsi.
Who's that girl?
I’ll often wonder but never know whose foot fit into that small sock that was washed up on the shoreline. Did it belong to the little girl in Moria who gave me a picture of a cat? Or the girl wearing shoes five sizes too big? Or the toddler whose mother was motioning for milk formula? Or was this child swallowed by the sea? A girl from Syria who died in search of peace?
Emotional rescue
Nidal and his daughter Nor warm themselves by the fire at the Lighthouse camp. Nidal has two sons in Germany, one in Sweden and one in Syria. He shows me photos of his grandchildren still in Syria and is overcome with emotion, handing me his phone while he wipes away his tears.
On dry land
Lisa Tran from Germany tidies the women and children’s clothing tent at the Lighthouse camp after the morning’s arrivals have all been provided with dry clothing. Since the Greek Coastguard and Frontex started intercepting boats and bringing them to the harbors, fewer have been landing on the shorelines.
Providing small comforts
"A handful of cloves, one cinnamon stick, 10 tea bags and tons of sugar," Jen Shaw-Sweet from England tells me the recipe to make tea in the huge pot ready for when refugees and migrants come to the Lighthouse Relief camp. In this image a family prepares to leave the camp and catch a bus to the Moria registration site. They came on a boat packed mainly with women and children.
Art therapy
Before NGOs were expelled from Moria, Lighthouse Relief worked with the Danish Refugee Council running the family compound, where I volunteered. In the art supplies crate there is just one box of crayons left to share between 20 children. A brother and sister from Afghanistan shyly presented me with their drawings.
'We lost everything'
I ask Farid for permission to take his photo. "We lost everything, pictures don’t matter," he replies. Farid receives shoes for his four-year-old son from a volunteer at Better Days. Farid is fearful for his wife who stayed behind - he has not heard from her in days. While grateful for the shoes, he expresses shame for not being able to provide a new pair for his child.
Stark reminder
Mountains of life jackets at the "life-jacket graveyard" near Molyvos stand as a stark reminder of the hundreds of thousands of people who landed on Lesbos in the last year. Many are fake, stuffed with foam sponge that if submerged would absorb water and make people sink faster. Many "life jackets" for kids are merely flotation aids suitable for a swimming pool rather than the open seas.