Oxfam described the increasingly dangerous state of the EU-sponsored refugee camp in Lesbos, where most recently a young man from Cameroon was found dead in the morning Tuesday as temperatures dropped below freezing.
According to a deal struck between the EU and Turkey in 2016 to stop people from getting into the continent, refugees seeking asylum have been forbidden from leaving “hotspot” camps on Greek islands to travel to mainland Europe.
The deal has been hailed as a success by Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president. As a result of the deal, around 15,000 men, women and children are stranded on the Greek islands closest to Turkey.
The report Vulnerable and Abandoned from Oxfam highlights the failures of officials at the Moria refugee camp to identify vulnerable people who are eligible for help.
Oxfam warned “vulnerable people including survivors of torture and sexual violence are being housed in unsafe areas… Pregnant women and mothers with newborns are left sleeping in tents, and unaccompanied children, wrongly registered as adults, have been placed in detention.”
Mothers only four days after giving birth by c-section have been sent away from the hospital to live in tents, in a camp where two-thirds of the people living there say they don’t feel safe.
The EU has been repeatedly criticized over the dire situation in Greece’s largest refugee camp, where Oxfam reported women are wearing nappies at night for fear of leaving their tents to go to the toilet.
Photo: “Photo: Vadim Ghirda” by Jordi Bernabeu Farrús is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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