2024-06-08 14:30:18
Each month, 1000’s of unlawful migrants arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos on boats and ships searching for a greater life in Europe. A reporter from Aktuálně.cz visited the island to learn the way the locals received together with the refugees. The elections to the European Parliament are being held this week, and one of many important themes of migration dominated the pre-election marketing campaign within the Czech Republic.
Lesbos (from our particular correspondent) – “You are from the Czech Republic? You do not like migrants there, do you? The Czech Republic, Hungary, all the Visegrad 4 are towards it, proper?” asks the Aktuálně.cz reporter within the capital of the island of Lesbos, Mytilene, native pharmacist Georgios. A person in his sixties stands outdoors his store on a sizzling day round midday to roll a cigarette within the shade. Regardless of the excessive temperatures, like a lot of the locals, he’s carrying lengthy pants and a shirt with the sleeves rolled as much as his elbows. He meets individuals from the camp right here each day, and based on him, nobody from the town has a battle with them.
Photograph: EU
“However it’s true that it was positively not with out issues right here. However we have gotten used to it,” he describes.
The Kara Tepe camp is situated proper on the sting of the town and is surrounded by the ocean on two sides. Migrants can principally transfer freely across the metropolis throughout the day. Every so often, in small teams, they head to a close-by grocery store, for instance, or they stroll to the bus cease and proceed to the town heart.
Though individuals who dwell close by of the refugee camp repeat that the state of affairs on the island is calm and residing with migrants is simpler right now, most Greeks have an issue with migration. One in 9 Greeks imagine their nation is accepting too many refugees. That is proven by an April survey by the French analysis firm BVA Xsight. Most Greeks would additionally like a compulsory redistribution of refugees in order that their nation is just not disproportionately burdened by migration.
The pharmacist provides that he wouldn’t need the state of affairs from 2015 to return, when over three thousand individuals arrived on Lesbos day by day. The authorities weren’t ready for them, and exhausted migrants with out water, meals or sanitary services merely remained on the streets of the capital.
Concern of locals
“Initially there was an enormous wave of solidarity. We naively thought that we may deal with and remedy the state of affairs ourselves,” recollects Daphne Vloumidiová, who has been working with refugees as a volunteer for over twenty years. However feelings regularly modified hand in hand because the state of affairs didn’t enhance. “Lots of people had been seeing somebody from Africa for the primary time. The locals had been scared, which is comprehensible to some extent.”
However she herself tries to battle towards comparable sentiments. They work long-term with refugees in a household resort in Thermi, only a few kilometers from Mytilene. “For instance, we took refugee youngsters right here who performed soccer with the German youngsters of our company. The purpose was for them to easily get to know one another, to spend time collectively and see that they do not must be afraid of one another. Out of the blue they had been now not refugees, however associates, who had names.”
However even she admits that the state of affairs on the island was crucial on the time of the best disaster. “Nobody left or left the resort with out water, banana, chocolate. As a result of these individuals had been utterly exhausted.” Then she herself helped the refugees, and despite the fact that it was unlawful, she drove them to the camp.
“Think about that you just disembark someplace on an island and you then stroll 60 kilometers in 45-degree warmth. And nobody was allowed to supply them a journey,” he says. The police detained her for this and he or she needed to show in court docket that she was not a part of a smuggling group.
“It wasn’t straightforward, however since I labored as a volunteer for twenty years, it wasn’t that tough for me to show it,” she confides. Her case was groundbreaking, and because of the court docket’s resolution, locals may begin serving to migrants legally.
154 % greater than final yr
Though the numbers now don’t method the disaster of 2015 and 2016, it’s by means of the Greek islands that the majority unlawful migrants arrive in Europe after which apply for asylum there. Whereas this yr in Italy, for instance, the variety of makes an attempt to cross the border is reducing, in Greece, quite the opposite, they’re rising considerably. The overwhelming majority of individuals come from Afghanistan, then from Syria and Egypt.
Information supply: Frontex | Video: Jiří Kropáček
The primary place the place migrants find yourself is the islands within the Aegean Sea. Among the many most frequent locations is Lesbos. The third largest island of Greece lies solely 10 kilometers from the coast of Turkey. Folks from the Center East, and generally from North Africa or Asia, who attain Turkey, board boats and sail to European shores.
Throughout the first 4 months of this yr, nearly 12,000 migrants arrived in Greece, which is 154 % greater than in the identical interval final yr, based on knowledge from the Greek Ministry of Migration.
Though the state of affairs is essentially the most severe since 2015, based on the interviewed respondents, the island is a lot better ready to reply to the elevated wave of migrants. “The Greek authorities have actually made plenty of progress, they’ve constructed nice capacities right here for accepting migrants and processing asylum functions, which they will already do proper within the camp,” explains Christine Nikolaidouová from the Worldwide Group for Migration.
At present, based on her, the largest problem is the combination of migrants, however that is primarily an issue for mainland Greece moderately than the islands, the place individuals keep for a short while.
They dwell like us
The Frontex company, which helps the Greek authorities patrol the Mediterranean Sea, sees it equally. Its spokesman Krzystof Borowski confirms that the European company is by far the biggest operation in Greece, with 600 individuals working there. However they’re additionally a lot better ready to take care of incoming migrants.
Locals agree that they’ve gotten used to the fixed inflow of refugees. “They purchase water, meals, the identical issues as the remainder of us. Our financial system wants them,” believes pharmacist Georgios. In line with him, new jobs are created on the island due to migrants.
Furthermore, the camp outdoors the town doesn’t solely imply migrants from the Center East and North Africa, but in addition volunteers and staff of non-profit organizations and European companies from all around the world. “Lesbos is now the second most multicultural place in Greece after Athens,” says Georgios proudly, lighting a cigarette.
And he is not the one one. Antonis Kleanthis, who’s in control of housing migrants on the camp and works beneath the Greek ministry, says the identical. “Once I was youthful, Lesbos was a lot much less attention-grabbing, now there are individuals from all around the world, it is opened my eyes quite a bit,” he says.
The Greek island of Lesbos lies close by of Turkish territory. | Photograph: Aktuálně.cz
They wander on
Among the migrants will keep on the island and begin working, for instance, in one of many many resorts on the island. However most of them keep on Lesbos for only some months earlier than they get asylum or get their first paperwork, then they journey elsewhere to Greece or different international locations of the European Union.
Nevertheless, the Mediterranean state believes that the state of affairs shall be higher due to the brand new migration pact, which was authorized by the European Parliament in April and which can come into impact in two years. Greek Minister of Migration and Asylum Dimitris Kairidis commented on the approval of the bundle, saying that the textual content of the settlement mirrored a number of objectives that the nation had.
The brand new laws envisages, for instance, simpler checks on migrants and the sooner return of unsuccessful asylum seekers to their international locations of origin. It additionally introduces a higher precept of solidarity. The opposite EU states will assist the international locations that settle for the biggest variety of migrants, both by taking in a part of the migrants or by supporting them in different methods, financially or materially. In line with the Greek minister, it’s the precept of solidarity that’s key.
Locals across the camp declare that they’ve gotten used to the migrants. | Photograph: Jakub Plíhal
Nevertheless, for the Greeks, in contrast to the Czechs, migration is just not one of many key matters of this yr’s European elections. And this even if the EU international locations are coping with it to the best extent. Migration is a crucial subject for a couple of quarter of Europeans, within the case of Greece it’s in twelfth place. Forty % of Greeks think about inflation and rising meals and gasoline costs to be the largest downside.