Just a few hours before they leave for the Greek island of Lesvos, this morning, in Padova, the activists of the campaign #Lesvoscalling have held a press conference.
After two trips were made to monitor the situation, in October and December 2019, the new group leaving is composed of 23 people belonging to different associations, Italian schools and the social centres of Padova, Treviso, Trento, Venezia and Vicenza. They will be in Lesvos until the 8th of January, aiming to tell and report, once more, the confinement of thousands of people on the hotspot Greek islands (the data from Aegean Boat Report of the 1st of January are of 42 thousand people), and to hand over the winter clothes which have been collected along with the hygienic kits for women which have been bought thanks to the solidarity of many people.
Lesvos is a necessary step in the migratory route known as the « Balkan Route », which starts in Turkey. To this day, there are 21,000 people on the island, women, men and kids who are suffering from the terrible consequences of the deal between the EU and Turkey, and also from the outrageous decision to enact the “geographic restriction”, that forces the migrants to remain confined on the island.
“#LesvosCalling – activists said – is a solidarity campaign which supports the freedom of movement. It has begun visiting the Balkan Route to map it, tell what is happening along it and most of all to concretely support the people staying in the Greek Islands and the Balkans during winter. The campaign has organised two trips to the island of Lesvos and two to the border between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, which have given us the opportunity to give a complete picture of the situation, also juridical, the migrants are in. #LesvosCalling is also a way to build concrete solidarity: in just a few weeks many winter clothes have been gifted thanks to the extraordinary help by the citizenship; now this material is travelling towards Greece, where it will be given to the volunteers working there”.
The solidarity action is going to focus mainly on Moria camp, where a thousand hygienic kits are going to be handed out to the women there. These kits have been bought with the money raised with the crowdfunding campaign “Kits for women in Lesvos”, which is continuing after the trip and is going to be a way to contribute to the campaign in the coming months.
“Questa sarà la prima fornitura – hanno sottolineato – di un progetto che si propone di continuare per i prossimi mesi fintanto che le condizioni del campo rimarranno quelle attuali“.
“This will be the first supply of a project which aims at continuing in the coming months, until the conditions in the camp stay as they are now” activists have said.
“If the life conditions of the 21,000 people trapped on the island are tragic, the women’s are worse. They make up more or less 40% of the “population” of the camp, they do not have new clothes, nor soap or sanitary pads. #LesvosCalling wants to make a real contribution to the situation these people have to endure and it looks to Europe as a space in which to act to build connections, trying to find radical alternatives, human and creative solidarity, common fights and freedom of movement for all”.
#lesvoscalling – Athens
Our van with winter clothes and shoes made a stop in Piraeus to deliver the material to the Athenian NGO Humanitarian Bank that deals with homelessness.
The hygienic kits for women will instead be brought and delivered to the #Moria camp in #Lesvos pic.twitter.com/vKIWDRnooT— Lesvos Calling (@CallingLesvos) January 3, 2020
