AYS Daily Digest 3/9/19: 1500 people transferred from Lesvos to Mainland
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Digest, Italy, Greece, Refugees, Police Brutality

Corsica Linea, a French passenger ferry company, rescued 18 people off the Balearic Islands on Monday. Spain allowed for the people to enter afterwards. It is every ship captain’s duty to respect international law and rescue those at sea, and the crew of Corsica Linea fulfilled their duty.

Greece

The news that organisation METAdrasi received USD 2 Million as a prize from The Conrad Hilton Foundation seemed to have upset some of the people working with refugees in Greece. As Documenting Afghanistan reports, METAdrasi has a “track record of ranging from physical abuse to harassment, intimidation to mismanagement.” In psychologist Lyla Schwartz’s letter she wrote in concern to the Conrad Hilton Foundation, she expresses her professional opinion and experience working with METAdrasi as:

“Since 2016 I have been engaged in my capacity as a psychologist with vulnerable minors that Metadrasi was tasked with providing care for, I witnessed or was made aware of a multitude of highly irregular, unscrupulous and unethical practices, which are particularly worrying given that the organisation’s beneficiaries are vulnerable, unaccompanied minors with uncertain immigration status. Volunteers as well as lawyers working on the cases of minors under Metadrasi’s care have concurred with me.”

Documenting Afghanistan mirrors this disappointing direction of funds, which would have the potential to be a lot more effective through other avenues of protecting the most vulnerable in Greece:

“The Conrad Hilton Foundation hasn’t just made a mistake, but has helped to endanger refugees in Greece by funding METAdrasi…For now, we at Documenting Afghanistan ask that those involved in refugee support share this information among your networks and contact the Conrad Hilton Foundation to demand they stop funding METAdrasi immediately and reallocate funds to those individuals or organizations most in need.”

You can contact the Conrad Hilton Foundation here.

As we reported previously, AYS hopes the funds will bee directed to help support and house many unaccompanied minors across the country.

Islands

In reaction to the escalating debilitating conditions and violence in Moria, as we started reporting yesterday, about 1500 people were transferred from Lesvos to the mainland. According to Greek media, the transfer continued as follows:

“The movement started at 5am, while the staff of the MORC worked all weekend to make sure they were logged and informed of the trip. By 11am the speedboat CALDERA VISTA had already departed, carrying the first 635. Then, at about noon, the AQUA BLUE ferry boarded 781 refugees and migrants aboard departed from Mytilene, shortly before 7 pm, to the port of Thessaloniki.”

Volunteer groups emphasize that the official story does not paint the whole picture:

“The official story is that people will be sent to other (maxed out) refugee camps in Northern Greece. From a reliable source we have heard that they will be ‘dumped’ in camps in which the situation is so bad that other organisations have left the camps.”

RSA notes the the official government response includes that after temporarily being held in camp of NeaKavala they will move to a new structure which has just been finished. The people on Lesvos cannot be trapped any longer with the heartbreaking mental health crisis they are going through, but taking people out of one crowded refugee camp on the island to another crowded refugee camp on the mainland is NOT a durable or humane decision.