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The first morning we stay at the beach in Charamida with a bigger group: About 4AM some of us hear the sound of an engine, people shouting. Directly at the beach next to us a boat with refugees from Syria and Iraq arrived. We go to welcome them and bring them some water and biscuits. It is a group of about 40 people, among them many families with children, who arrived from Turkey after 4 hours in the sea.
We call the coastguard, we call the police, but without much hope that they will come and pick them.
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There are so many arrivals these days and mostly the people have to walk and walk for hours until they reach Mitilini where they have to register in the port. The way from Charamida to Mitilini is long. Continue reading Journey III: First Impressions→
The first groups of w2e and JoG arrived in Mytilini (Lesvos) / Greece. The people from Greece, Sweden, Germany and France arrived on different ways. Some of them flew to Athens or directly to Mytilini, others travelled by car and ferry. Some of them already met in Athens where they organized the infoguides in different languages. When the ferry arrived in Mytilini some of the people had to stay in the harbour because the cars were full of material. So they got some first impressions of the situation there. The others on their way to the camp already saw the first refugees who had just arrived.
They were on their way to the harbour where the first registration takes place. Our people went fast to the camp to unload the cars, then they drove back to catch up the refugees because the way from where they arrive to the harbour is very long and the heat makes it very hard to get there. Back in the harbour, they caught up the rest of our group to go back to the camp where the work started. The camping place was really dirty, full of garbage and a lot of things were broken, so everything had to be renovated and cleaned. Also the tents had to be build up. But it wasn’t possible to arrive slowly and relaxed because during the construction of the camp every night more and more refugees arrived on the island. So with the start of the camp the action began immediately.
It is Sunday. For at least two nights no refugee was seen during night sleeping in the port of Mytilene. Today there are again about 100 persons from Afghanistan and Syria mainly but also from Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries.
“We spent five nights in the detention center in Moria,” they say. “It was specifically over crowded at the outside area where we were in the beginning.”
Everybody is stressed to leave. A handful of families didn’t know they had to get tickets for their babies too even if they were for free. While trying to enter the ferry they were send back to the ticket office. The mothers had already entered with the other children and were not reachable. Two Syrian dads and one Afghan holding all small babies stand beside the ticket shop not knowing what to do. Their women have the documents of the children inside the boat. Only in the last minutes and after discussions with the ticket office they manage to solve the problem and run in the ferry.
A group of kurdish Syrian men is standing aside. They are angry.
“I want to ask you what we can do. In the morning an officer came on a motor bike. He parked and came over to the place we were sleeping on the street. Then he kicked this 16-year-old who is traveling alone twice and shouted ‘stand up’. We are no animals! If we had more time we would go to report this at the police station. We are not afraid, we have honor. We want you to publish this somewhere. The number of the motor bike was MTZ 415. It was around 5:30 in the morning of Sunday 2.8.15. Thank you.”
Two days between Kara Tepe tent camp and the port of Mytilene (24.7.-25.7.15)
A small Afghan boy is sitting outside a blue tent built up just behind the kiosk in the port of Mytilene. On the other side of the tent there are some other Afghan minors sitting on a blanket on the floor and leaning at the walls of an abandoned swimming hall. It is late in the night. His elder brother has fever. He is climbing out of the tent to join us. The two underage boys from Afghanistan are camping there already since four nights. They arrived to Lesvos together with their mother and father and two little sisters. In Moria they registered themselves as adults, as other people advised them to avoid reporting their real ages for the own good. Then the two of them got released alone.
“We fear to loose track of our family if we move away from here,” F. the elder brother says. “My father said we should wait here for them.” He seems exhausted and under pressure carrying all the responsibility of holding his family together on his small shoulders. With an official note ordering them to leave the country within 30 days, both boys’ time is running out, while they wait for their relatives. “My father said they would be released today. Again they didn’t let them go. Others were only one night in there. I don’t understand why they don’t let them free.”
Μας ανησυχούν βαθύτατα οι αναληθείς πληροφορίες που διαδίδει η ιστοσελίδα Lesvosnews.gr σχετικά με το ενημερωτικό φυλλάδιο για τους πρόσφυγες και τους μετανάστες, το οποίο εκδόθηκε και δημοσιεύθηκε από το Δίκτυο Welcome to Europe το καλοκαίρι του 2014 και το οποίο χρησιμοποιείται από την Κοινωνία των Πολιτών στη Λέσβο για την ενημέρωση νεοαφιχθέντων προσφύγων και μεταναστών για την κατάστασή τους και τα δικαιώματά τους (στη δική τους γλώσσα). Continue reading 10.06.15/w2eu: Ανακοίνωση σχετικά με τη δυσφήμηση του ενημερωτικού φυλλαδίου του Welcome to Europe→
