Patrick Strickland is a freelance journalist based in Athens.
CHIOS, Greece — For most of Europe, the migration crisis that spiked in 2015 is a fading memory. For locals and asylum seekers on Greece’s Aegean islands, it never ended.
Some 36,000 people hoping to settle in Europe remain spread across Chios, Lesvos, Leros, Kos and Samos in so-called reception centers designed to house no more than 5,400. Trapped in limbo, unable to leave the islands until their asylum requests are processed, their ordeal is exacerbated by an overtaxed system facing a backlog of 90,000 applications.
Islanders, frustrated by a lack of support from Athens and the European Union, have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the camps, which many feel have become a burden on their communities.
Moves by the center-right government to shutter the camps and build closed detention centers in their place have escalated tensions in recent months, compounded by a spike in new arrivals. Efforts to clear land to build these centers, which locals fear could become permanent fixtures, have been met with protests. On Chios and Lesvos, people who gathered on Tuesday to protest the arrival of riot police and excavation machines were met with tear gas.
“The everyday life of the people [on the islands] has been overturned” — Mayor of Chios Stamatis Karmantzis
The crisis is spilling over into Athens, too. Mayor of Chios Stamatis Karmantzis, along with North Aegean Regional Governor Kostas Moutzouris and mayors from Lesvos and Samos, joined a protest outside the interior ministry earlier this month to demand a better solution to the flurry of new arrivals.
“The everyday life of the people [on the islands] has been overturned,” said Karmantzis from the sidelines of the demonstration, describing the situation as “out of control.”
“Normality” he added, will reign only if asylum seekers are relocated to the mainland.
“[W]e islanders now need to receive solidarity from the rest of Greece and Europe,” said Georgios Stantzos, the mayor of East Samos.
A man and a woman overlook the Vial refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios on December 10, 2019 | Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images
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On Chios, many islanders feel abandoned. With confidence in the government’s ability to manage the catastrophe lost, many have joined protests — coordinated with locals in Lesvos and Samos — against the plans. In Chios, the island’s largest town, a banner reading “No to turning the North Aegean into a prison of souls,” hangs above the main square.
Several kilometers away, near the village of Chalkio, 4,700 people live in an abandoned factory filled with dozens of containers. The camp is known as Vial, and it hosts four times its intended capacity; at least half live in makeshift shacks cobbled together with sheets of wood and scrap metal, which spill across the surrounding olive grove.
“Vial is psychological torture,” said Sama, a 29-year-old Syrian refugee who arrived in November via Iraqi Kurdistan, Iran and Turkey and asked that her real name be withheld. “You can’t change it, and you can’t escape it. You just have to survive it.”
The camps are dangerous. Already overcrowded and lacking both basic sanitation and access to medical care, they are pushed to breaking point by high numbers of arrivals. Violent riots have broken out at camps across the islands, including at Moria on the north shore of Lesvos, where some 19,000 people live in a space designed for about 2,800. Human rights organizations have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.
“Living conditions are tough for both the people who stay there … and for the [Greek] people residing on the island,” said Chios Mayor Karmantzis. “There has been a great mistrust” between the government and the Aegean islands over the last five years, he added. “The locals are really worried.”
“There is a poisonous climate, which is built by the regional governor and the mayors [on the islands]” — Ioannis Stevis, founder of progressive news outlet Astraparis
Karmantzis, who was elected in May, was expelled from the governing New Democracy party in 2016 over comments that “the only good Turk is a dead Turk.” Since taking office in Chios, he has backed anti-migrant protests on the island and accused nonprofit organizations working with asylum seekers of “breaking” Greek islands.
Some residents share his view. “Asylum seekers are illegal immigrants, not refugees,” said 22-year-old Chios resident Panagiotis Krimadis at the protest outside the interior ministry. He wants them moved from the island, claiming their presence has taken a toll on the local economy by negatively affecting tourism.
According to Ioannis Stevis, founder of Chios-based progressive news outlet Astraparis, far-right attacks on asylum seekers, humanitarian workers and others surged at the start of the refugee crisis in 2015. He was attacked in 2016 while reporting on a story.
“There is a poisonous climate, which is built by the regional governor and the mayors [on the islands],” he said. “They have a xenophobic voice, and people listen to them.”
Although the frequency of these attacks has tapered off, he is worried the situation could escalate.
Some 20 local politicians and citizens in Chios established the Coordinated Committee of Representatives and Residents last week in order to organize protests against closed detention centers and call for the dismantling of the Vial camp.
On Lesvos, locals and municipal officials dumped thousands of migrants’ life jackets on land earmarked for a closed center in protest of its construction.
A young boy stands in a camp on the Greek island of Samos on February 22, 2020 | Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images
Georgios Stantzos, the mayor of East Samos, made headlines when he was caught on video cursing and shoving a group of asylum seekers occupying a public square in the town of Vathy in December.
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Since coming to power in July, the right-wing New Democracy government has taken a much harder line on migration than its predecessor, Syriza, which oversaw the worst of the crisis. The party has promised to deport more than 10,000 people before the end of 2020, passed legislation aimed at curbing refugee arrivals and last month announced plans to erect a floating border wall near Lesvos as a pilot program in the Aegean Sea.
Prime Minister and party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has asked the EU to pledge more money to help deal with the influx of people — who he said were mostly “economic migrants” rather than refugees fleeing war-torn regions — and called it “deeply unfair” that EU countries refuse to help or resettle asylum seekers who arrive in Greece.
Deputy Minister for Citizen Protection Georgios Koumoutsakos, who deals with migration issues, said the priority in Athens is on deterring new arrivals. The idea is to alleviate the overall burden on the Greek islands, which have been at the forefront of dealing with the waves of people trying to reach Europe from Turkey.
Last year, the U.N. Refugee Agency estimated that more than 60,000 asylum seekers reached Greece by land and sea, the largest spike in arrivals since the European Union and Turkey made a deal to stem the flow of refugee boats in March 2016.
To many of the mayors, the only viable option is to move asylum seekers to better-equipped facilities on the mainland.
Koumoutsakos added that the government is confident it can mend growing rifts with local authorities. “We understand that there is this fatigue [on the islands],” he said. “We are trying to build bridges of trust between them and the government, and [with] local mayors and the regional governor.”
To many of the mayors, including Stantzos from Samos, the only viable option is to move asylum seekers to better-equipped facilities on the mainland.
For those trapped in limbo, it can’t get much worse.
“Stuck here until now, we don’t know about our cases, or the decisions being made about us,” said Mohammed al-Shareef, a Palestinian refugee from the Gaza strip.
Moving to a real facility with water and electricity would feel like progress, he added. He wants to leave the island for Western Europe, and hopes the camp will be shut down.