Since Saturday 10 October we are back on the Greek island of Lesvos, an example of the failure of migration European policies and violation of fundamental rights.
It has been one year since our first trip to the hotspot island when the Lesvos calling campaign was born.
We decided to go and see for ourselves what was happening on this confined island, which was home to more than 25,000 people seeking protection in Europe, 13,000 of them concentrated in the Moria camp.
A few days before our arrival a fire had broken out, causing numerous people to be seriously injured and, according to the authorities, 2 victims. It was not the first and would not be the last. The Greek police threw tear gas on 300 children protesting about the fact that the camp is overcrowded and asking to be transferred. It was also not the first time that the police had acted violently against the inhabitants of the largest refugee camp in Europe, the “shame of Europe“.
When we got there, we realised that the situation was even worse than we expected: unlike Idomeni, Calais, Bihac or other border areas, in Moria even the hope of escaping, of being free again, was disappearing. We found and reported a situation of total deprivation of any right and a true health emergency, of children abandoned to loneliness and self-harm. During our first trip we also had the opportunity to get to know some associations and NGOs, such as Lesvos solidarity, Refugee Rescue / ‘Mo Chara’, Lighthouse Relief and Mare Liberum, which, resisting the institutional attacks, continued undaunted to carry out actions of solidarity and mutualism.
After that first trip, we have returned to Lesvos on two other occasions. We went there with a much larger delegation in January 2020 to deliver clothing and essential goods thanks to the solidarity of so many people who responded to our call to be at the side of the people of Moria. We then went back in March 2020, to continue the monitoring and communication work that we had started in October, just in the days when there was an escalation, both in intensity and number, of violence episodes by neo-fascist groups with violent physical attacks on migrants, activists, journalists and also fire attacks. A strategy of tension aimed to frighten and to push away unwanted observers while the Greek government was voting new repressive laws, revoking the asylum right and being invested by Ursula Von der Leyen with the role of “shield of Europe” with Turkey.
#Lesvosvalling has never divided concrete solidarity and political action: every time we got back from a trip, our solidarity towards migrant people has pushed us to point out to the ones responsible for this situation, and to occupy the Greek consulate in Venice and the offices of the EU Commission in Milan, to sanctioning companies, such as the Cantiere Navale Vittoria in Adria, that make money on policies that lead to border militarisation.
Our investigating, monitoring and solidarity actions have stretched out to the Balkan route, finding just as much violence and abuse, but also forms of solidarity and resistance.
Then, borders have slowly started to be closed, the Covid-19 emergency and the difficulty of travelling to other countries has slowed us down, but they have not distracted us, they have not made our contacts and the relationships we have built become less strong.
This time we go back to Lesvos to a completely changed situation. Moria has been devastated by a fire which has brought attention back to the island and to the migrant people who have been further worn out by months of harsh lockdown. The requests for the immediate evacuation of the migrants have been met by the wall built by the fortified Europe, which has financed the immediate construction of a new, militarised camp, some sort of “Moria, second act“, which has been placed near the sea, on a plot of land once used as a military shooting range. In order to present itself as being efficient, the Greek government, after leaving people without tents to live in the mud of the “first Moria” for the last five years, has employed a large number of police forces to “convince” people to get inside this new prison, and to stop NGOs and journalists from entering.
All this is happening while the EU Commission in Bruxelles submits a new pact on immigration and asylum, putting together the words solidarity and forced repatriations, in fact making more and more important Frontex’s work and the Hotspot system, considering funds to make sure people do not leave in the first place and to sign new deals such as the one with Turkey. In other words, the EU is planning to reinforce and to export this “Lesvos model” to other places which border with extra EU countries.
The activists of Lesvos calling