Many of the guests at the Aklidi Hotel are volunteers that have come to help refugees. One particular group that I met were Boat Rescue from The Netherlands. I became friends with Mark Rullens who was heading his group. He had several volunteers from Holland and they took two shifts during the night and early morning to identify and rescue boats coming over from Turkey. Usually the inflatable boats that came over from Turkey were filled with 30 or more frightened refugees, traveling in the pitch dark, trying to evade the Turkish Coast Guard.
Mark told me that the smugglers would leave them half way and point to the light in the horizon and instruct the refugees to go towards that light. The night before 5 boats were rescued and one of the boats had crying and screaming children. Two men in their 50’s lay dead on the boat floor, they had died within the 2-3 hour journey and the rest of the refugees were in panic. Mark said that his team intercepted the boat and they were literally scrounging around to find terrorized children hiding inside the boat crevices. The tragedy is that this is a common occurrence. I cannot imagine the horrific scenes that are embedded in refugee children’s minds for the rest of their lives.
Since Pikpa is now going to close, I had to find another avenue to continue to contribute. Last night, Andre from We Act Sweden helped me to make contact with a Better Days for Moria, where over 600 Pakistani, Afghanistan and Moroccan refugees are staying. There is a lot of need for Urdu translators especially in the Medic Clinic. They are doing excellent work and the refugees’ needs are being met. But there is a lot of uncertainty in the air as no one knows if the army is coming any moment to close Better Days. I will be working in the medic tent and the volunteers I met are wonderful.
I got myself to Better Days at Moria Medic Clinic and met two Muslim female doctors from the UK originally from Pakistan who were leaving the next day, so it worked out well that I was going to help with translating Urdu in the Medic tent.
It was a very busy day, a Malaysian dentist, Dr. Akbar who had set up a dentist tent had many patients. He told me that the Dentist Unit for refugees is the only one of its kind in the whole of Greece maybe even Europe. I met a wonderful nurse, Liz, from the UK who had come for two weeks to volunteer. She and I became good friends and I know that will be a friendship that will last a lifetime. There was another nurse, Erica from Switzerland, who was volunteering with her husband and her parents. All amazing people with big hearts.
Today, they were especially busy because word spread throughout camp that the army would intervene soon and close the open camp and put all refugees in a locked detention center. The army officials had come to Better Days Organizers to announce that if refugees voluntarily came to the Moria Detention Center which was adjacent to the camp, then they will not have any difficulties. However, if they do not come voluntarily than their cases will not be reflected well and they will be arrested.
I have been amazed at the kindness and generosity of the Greek people in that they opened their hearts and country to the refugees, even though they themselves are going through their own economic crisis. What I don’t understand is that the European Union has now decided to close their borders and left Greece to deal with this crisis. The Greek refugee camps in conjunction with NGO’s have done their best to accommodate in a humanitarian way especially since last year when the influx of refugees was overwhelming. However, because of the EU/Turkey deal, Greece is being pressured to detain refugees and send them back to Turkey where conditions for refugees are so very poor. Meanwhile, Turkey gets 6 billion, Greece gets a minimum amount and yet much of the responsibility is left to Greece. This is highly unjust. I have seen how much the Greek people and authorities have been doing to help the refugees at their own expense and piece of mind. The Turkish camps are a mess, refugees are denied human rights and now the EU wants all the refugees that have entered EU after March 20, to be sent back to Turkey? How does this make any sense?
As I was translating in the Medic Unit, I heard the stories regarding the journey that the Pakistanis endured on their way to Greece. One Pakistani man, Shazad, had a fish farm and he had borrowed heavily on it. He said that his fish died within a few days due to an epidemic and he had no way of paying the loan sharks. They threatened him and he decided to escape to Europe. With him was his nephew who really wanted to be a doctor so that he could help people but he did not have any way of a means to a further education. He said that many of the doctors in Pakistan are just into making money. They refer to patients for lab work and pharmacy where they also get a huge cut. He wanted to make a difference to his people.
Shazad had come to the medic tent because he was in a lot of pain in his feet and could not walk. He was leaning on his nephew as the pain had become unbearable. I translated for Dr. Yvan from France, a kind and amazing doctor, and Shazad told us that he had walked most of the journey from Pakistan. It took them two months to reach Lesvos. Dr. Yvan said that the muscles in his feet were very sore but he did not have any permanent damage. He tried to get him to use crutches for a few days to give his feet some rest, but Shazad absolutely refused. He is a very proud man and said that he would be made fun of by the other members in his tent. The below pic on left is Shazad and his nephew and on the right is Dr. Yvan and his lovely wife.
Most of the migrant refugees just wanted a chance to work for a few years and go back to their homeland. Most used all their savings, sold homes, land, anything they had to gather enough money for smugglers so that they can come to Europe to find work to feed their families. Some had legitimate cases of their lives being in danger and could not go back. The Shia and Christian Pakistanis in smaller villages, were targeted by the Taliban and ISIS and were running for their lives. Going back to Pakistan was a death sentence for them.
The smugglers who facilitated for the Pakistanis to come to Lesvos are the real culprits and criminals in this whole mess. Many of the migrant workers relayed to me that they left Pakistan, and walked through Afghanistan, then Iran, Turkey and to Lesvos. In the two months of their journey they were robbed, beaten up, slept in the open, at times didn’t eat or drink for 3-5 days, they were robbed of their cell phones, back packs, money and twelve people were jam packed into small cars with 4 in the trunk for 12 hours straight. Their stories were horrific and as many of them told me of their migration they had tears in their eyes. Two grown men started to cry when relating their stories. They told me of dead bodies strewn throughout the paths they took and friends b. Their only hope was to move forward and in the hopes of reaching Europe. They then crossed the Aegean Sea in the middle of the night for an additional 1000 Euros and when they made it onshore, they were given shelter to different open camps run by NGO’s in Lesvos. For the last three months the registration for Pakistanis were halted by the authorities so they were left in limbo. Now they did not know what to expect with the army take over. MThe situation definitely looked very grave indeed.
To be honest when I first heard of non-Syrians seeking asylum, I had my own biases. I supported Syrian, Iraqi, and Afghanistan refugees due to the war, but I had deep reservation about the migrant workers. I felt they were opportunists taking advantage of the fact that Europe was opening its doors to refugees. After the German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would take 800,000 refugees, refugees started to flood into Europe. I believed that the migrant workers were doing an injustice to those whose countries were directly effected by war and daily bombings. But as I started to hear the personal stories of the Pakistanis, Moroccans, Ethiopians, Somalians, Iranians, Afghanistanis, and neighboring countries, it became evident that every single asylum seeking individual had there own personal tragedy, their own difficulties and their own legitimate reasons for leaving their countries.
Before we had borders and countries, migrations amongst humans was a common occurrence. People fled famine, epidemics, wars and sought to start a new life elsewhere. Now we can no longer do that, if a particular area is adversely effected then the inhabitants are literally imprisoned within its borders.
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