Help on the spot - Lesbos/Mytelini/Moria - together with Helga Longin

The preparations for the trip were made in no time. After consulting with my closest friends and NGO colleagues, I quickly made the decision to fly to Lesvos. This great injustice to people, this pain, this cruel political game at the expense of people must be documented. We will be the witnesses one day. We are now the ones who can decide to interrupt our lives for the breath of eternity to travel to the site of this crime, to help where we are needed and to give our accounts.

As respect for both those affected and the islanders demanded, we did a Corona test. I emailed friends and supporters about the project. And I was and am very touched and grateful, both the encouragement and the financial support were and are enormous.

Help on site.

If you want to help the people on the run here on Lesbos, I can only advise you to get in touch with an experienced NGO on the ground beforehand. There are not many who are really here and whom you can trust.

Doctors Without Borders , Home for All and Stand by me Lesvos are the ones I might mention here. They provide direct help here. Many projects throughout Greece are important, but now it seems most important to me to give the donations directly to the people here on Lesvos. There is a lack of everything, the simplest things that we take for granted. There is practically nothing that the people on the run still possess.

Home For All distributes about 2000 meals a day. We will support Nikos and Katharina with both labour and your donations. We will meet with "Stand by me Lesvos", the direct partner organisation of Diakonie, to find out what is needed here, and we will once again ask large organisations to donate to MSF Doctors Without Borders. Here, where 6 year old children want to take their own lives out of desperation, where countless people are so desperate that they collapse, fall ill or suffer severe psychological damage. Where the minimum is lacking.

Here, in a children's camp, 2000 children (!) were behind bars, locked up with security, screaming for help when you walked by. Behind bars, originally designed for 300 children, 2000. I don't ask myself the question "God, why have you abandoned us?". It's more like, man, what have we become?

400 of the children were flown to Thessaloniki after the fire, they now live in a house, guarded by police, only allowed to enter the forecourt. Until today, 15 September, 4 days after the fire, still no fresh clothes, no toothbrush, let alone a spark of affection. For every 40-50 children, there are 4-5 caregivers.

Man, what have we become? Children's souls, should we not teach them to fly?

Our Minister of the Interior flies to Athens, bringing 55 tonnes of aid. The fact that the 181 containers that Austria sent in May 2020 are still not on Lesvos does not seem to interest him. Nor does the arrival of the current aid supplies in Lesvos. Mr Nehammer only flies as far as Athens, because it is about protecting the external borders, Greece-Turkey. The fact that one flies with aid goods that at least reach Athens is a welcome prestige object at home in limited Austria, which has little or nothing to do with Lesbos/Moria, let alone the people there. Foreign Minister Schallenberg will come on Thursday, also only as far as Athens, will also talk about Lesbos again, but the real reason for his long-planned trip is gas, the debate between Greece and Turkey.

What are 13,000 homeless, desperate people, children behind bars, guarded by armed police and security and, for example, a 16-year-old who has had a court order from Austria for months to come to his brother in Austria. But he was "forgotten" in Moria because no one was interested.

My heart is sore, I stare into the air in between and can hardly believe what monsters we humans are. Moria will go down in the history books for mistreatment, failure to help people in greatest need and also for political debates that lasted so long that some people in Moria did not live to see their end.

I am incredibly grateful that Helga Longin, a strong, loving friend, has set out with me on this painful mission. We will peel potatoes, cook rice, get nappies and baby food, do what we can together with others. And report on the misery, the inconceivable need, the cruelty, on the whitewashing of politics, on the pain that we spread here in apparent pleasure and on a vision of how we could give dignity back to all of us.

If you would like to support this, with visible #HilfeVorOrt then please make a donation to

AT93 3842 0000 0002 7516, Doro Blancke, Subject: Lesbos

sincere thanks!

Daily, starting tonight, we will publish a short report here and at the end of our mission we will publish a donation overview and expenditure statement.

We cannot change the whole world, but we can leave love behind for everyone according to our possibilities.

Doro and Helga

#human rights #charity #human dignity #EU #Austria #Greece

Comments 2

  1. Lb. Doro und Mitstreiter*innen, möchte mein Geb.tagsgeschenk (hab mir Geld gewünscht) Euch zur Verfügung stellen. Zu diesem Anlass möcht ich Eure Nachricht mit Kt.daten ausdrucken und auflegen. Ich nehme an, das ist okay.
    Frage:der 16jährige Junge, der pos. Papiere hat, kann man ihn nicht “einfach” ausfliegen? Voraussetzungen? Lb. Gruß Maria

    1. Post
      Author

      Liebe Maria,
      wir bedanken uns sehr herzlich für die von Dir organisierte Hilfe. Innigen Dank, auch an alle Deine Freund*innen, Unterstützer*innen Deines Geburtstagsprojekts.
      Auf Deine Frage hin: Das geht nicht so einfach. Da braucht es gute Zusammenarbeit von verschiedenen Stellen, was ja einerseits für den Schutz von Minderjährigen gut ist, andererseits aber eine kleine Katastrophe, wenn man die Art und Weise kennt, wie Griechenland diese Dinge abarbeitet.
      Dieser und andere Fälle sind inzwischen gut gelungen, auch mit Hilfe von unterschiedlichen Rechtsvertreter*innen und Behörden.
      Der Artikel ist allerdings beinahe 2 Jahre alt, ich weiß nicht, ob Dir das bewusst war. Da war unsere liebe Freundin Helga Longin noch mit, die ja leider mittlerweile verstorben ist.
      Wir sind immer noch dort, auch Vertreter*innen vom Verein, bei dem Helga tätig war, kommen immer wieder auf die Insel um gute Projekte mit uns abzusprechen und zu unterstützen.
      Gerne kannst Du auch unseren Newsletter bestellen, da findest Du in regelmäßigen Abständen Info über unsere Tätigkeiten.
      Alles Liebe zum Geburtstag, mit herzlichen Grüßen, Doro

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