A camp that all of us together, Fairness Asyl, Asylkoordination Österreich, Diakonie Österreich, Volkshilfe Österreich, SOS Mitmensch and many others have long demanded to be dissolved. Up to 23,000 people crammed into a camp designed for 3,000. It was a place of pain, humiliation, deterrence, a place where people were humiliated and left to all the cruelties imaginable and unimaginable in Europe.
When I went there last year with my friend Helga Longin, we didn't know what to expect. We often said "that was a good thing", because then we wouldn't have dared to go. Yes, it may sound strange, because many of you hardly know any pictures of the real misery. You can't photograph women when they have to defecate in the jungles, next to the street, among thousands of people, without water, without paper, just as you can't photograph broken souls. Europe knew everything and kept silent, reading the newspapers. It mourned far too silently, or used desperate, broken people as an excuse to incite people to flee. Europe showed compassion and fear in equal measure. "Unbelievably sad, but we cannot take them all!
None of these sceptics, fear-mongers and agitators asked who these "all" were. No one spoke about the fact that in reality it was and is a "ridiculous" number for Europe. No one in charge sought solutions for people whose fates "in ugly pictures" they did not want to show and see after all. Camp KaraTepe was fenced in, which was probably the most important construction measure. All the countries boasted of their help on the ground, which resulted in 10,000 people having to spend the winter in plastic tents, without showers, without heating, without adequate medical care, without warmth, without hope. Women, children, men, all abandoned in this misery. Helga and I did not only make friends on this "island forgotten by God", because disaster relief was important to us, but it was just as important to us to report on these atrocities. Everything is running like clockwork in this camp! NGOs are trying to do good, it is an eternal construction site, because at some point the electricity should also work. The area is being cleared of military residues by playing children, it was a former weapons training area, and visitors don't see any crying people, because they crawl into their dwellings and don't stand around on the "main road". And everyone is so busy. Everyone already has shoes and a jacket, the food distribution goes so fast now and people basically have nothing else to do anyway, waiting for food, doctor's appointments, interviews or notices and that's good because then they are busy. Everything is good, everything is great!
What else do you expect from a refugee camp? And after all, it is there, just like the illegal pushbacks, so that these people, who are all migrants by the way, don't get the idea of telling their relatives that they are fine! The dramatic thing is that they do it anyway! Because they don't want to make their loved ones sad, even though they have the worst nightmares and fears. They do it in spite of the fact that after the icy cold of winter they had to endure in sweltering heat in plastic tents, with hardly any shade, except in some of the tents of those who work in the camp during the day and have admonished us not to always report such ugly things about this camp. Most of the residents have massive stomach and intestinal problems, sleeping disorders, many suffer from depression. Hardly anyone notices who is there for 2-3 weeks, except the doctors.
Because for 2-3 weeks the humiliated people can keep up their soft smile "Thx, we are good". And that's good, isn't it? Then the rest of Europe can sleep well after all. Now the muddy, grey ground has been "painted over" with white gravel, 1000s of people generously released onto the mainland. To the next misery, because no home, no welcome, no education. Or else: a few people are put on a programme: Greek language courses, a flat for a few months, it's important, you can show something off and the other EU countries can sit back and relax. And then we don't need to talk about the other, main misery. Thousands of homeless people in the middle of a city of millions, with children. Rape, drugs, prostitution, suicide attempts. Women who are looking for their families without success, single mothers who don't know what tomorrow will bring. KaraTepe is now flooded with sunlight, the white gravel is radiant to the point of blinding, the blue sea glistens.
Let us not be blinded! 1 year after the fire in Moria, minors accused of arson by a former camp resident were sentenced to 10 years in prison without his testimony in court (he is untraceable, somewhere in Germany)! Nobody cared! Families were separated, people broken, children so traumatised that they no longer speak, the family whose little girl was raped got a negative asylum decision and is only still on the island "thanks to the situation in Afghanistan". And it goes on!
Sure, they are working like crazy to put up containers, although journalists are largely denied access to the camp, because they want to avoid that, with flooded tents in the coming winter, the request of civil society to take people into our countries comes up again. That would not fit into the plan if everyone could travel on after registration and initial questioning. For who would then take care of the deterrence and what conditions would ensure the gradual hardening/ brutalisation of all of us? But don't worry, for many it is getting easier, we are getting used to it, with every day that we see misery, hear agitation, know about dead people in the Mediterranean and see beaten and maltreated people at the external borders (Bosnia). We cannot take them all" is a cheap and cruel sentence that does not even call for the smallest solution. 1 year after the fire in Moria, all this is normality! And we civilised Europeans. Ps: and besides all this pain I still miss Helga! #Courage#WeekendForMoria#EU#ExternalBorders#HumanRights