The Guardian — Aid agencies in Greece have warned that “appalling” conditions for thousands of stranded refugees are becoming increasingly explosive.
In an excoriating indictment of official efforts to handle the emergency, Human Rights Watch said a humanitarian crisis was unfolding in the Athens port of Piraeus that needed urgently to be addressed. “Thousands of asylum seekers and migrants … face appalling conditions as the crisis for people trapped in Greece due to border closures intensifies,” a report released by the group said on Thursday.
“The suffering in Piraeus is a direct consequence of Europe’s failure to respond in a legal and compassionate way to the crisis on its shores.”
About 5,000 men, women and children were dependent entirely on volunteers in the absence of any visible government support, the watchdog said. Fights had erupted as tensions escalated, with aid workers often forced to intervene.
“[People] are sleeping in squalid, unsanitary and unsafe conditions in passenger waiting areas, in an old warehouse, in tents outdoors and even under trucks,” it said.
Brawls involving rival ethnic groups had made women refugees feel increasingly unsafe.
Close to 50,000 migrants and refugees are trapped in the country. On Thursday, for the first time since a controversial EU deal with Turkey to halt the influx was brought into force, Greece announced that no arrivals had been registered on any of the Aegean islands that have borne the brunt of the flows.
Officials, however, were hesitant to say whether the no-shows were due to a Nato flotilla patrolling the Aegean, or gale-force winds that had made crossings from the Turkish coast especially dangerous.
The attacks in Belgium had also exacerbated tensions, with asylum seekers venting anger and frustration by staging protests. Earlier this week, refugees resorted to acts of self-immolation, with two men attempting to set fire to themselves in Idomeni, where up to 14,000 have been living in deplorable conditions close to the sealed Macedonian frontier. Tensions were such that NGOs withdrew from the area on Wednesday. Earlier, relief organisations announced they were suspending operations in reception centres because they did not want to participate in the “mass expulsions” they believe the EU-Turkey deal will now entail.
Although Greek authorities have urged people to move to government shelters, aid workers said it was clear facilities had run out of space to take in more.
“Idomeni is an exhibit of human misery. It is not a place where humans should be,” said Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency who has been in Idomeni for the past three weeks. “People are exhausted, they have run out of patience. The longer they are there, the risks will increase,” he said. “It is quite clear that Greece is struggling to cope with Europe’s refugee crisis.”
