Humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees at Idomeni, Greece, August, 2015. Demotix/Giorgios Cristakis. All rights reserved. When ISIS arrived in Mosul,
Fatima knew that her son, a policeman, was in mortal danger. With his children
they fled to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, a safer place for now but
with little future to offer a displaced family. So Fatima set off on her own, on
a tortuous journey in search of a better life for the family.
She flew to Istanbul, then
made her way to the Turkish coast, straight into the hands of people smugglers.
When the boat she was on reached the Isle of Lesbos there was no beach to land
on so she and the other passengers were slung overboard to swim to shore. If it
wasn’t for two younger men supporting her as they swam Fatima, in her mid 60s
and overweight, says she would surely have drowned.
By the time she had
reached the refugee camp at Idomeni in Greece, Fatima’s health was
deteriorating. The staff of Doctors of the
World who examined her had requested she be taken over the border to a
hospital in Macedonia for treatment, and while she stood waiting for the
ambulance to arrive, she told her story.
“I had nothing to lose
when I left Iraq”, said Fatima, as she waited anxiously for the ambulance to
arrive to take her to hospital. “I am old. I took the risk so that my family
can live”.
…
While
arriving in Europe, into the arms of volunteer doctors, is a moment of
salvation in the eyes of those who have survived that far, what they don’t know
is that further along the trail, the wind has changed.
According to the most
recent census, the Greek village of Idomeni has a population of 154. To approach
it now is a lesson in how quickly official statistics can become meaningless
when events take over.
Less than 200 metres from
the border with Macedonia, the village has become one of the busiest flashpoints
along a punishing migration route. And with hardening attitudes at this border
point and many others in the region, the situation is getting worse.
Every day thousands arrive
at the camp before they attempt to get into Macedonia; every day hundreds need
medical attention before they can go on. Built by a combined effort of the
local authority and MSF and run by a collection of aid agencies and medical
volunteers, it’s one of dozens of temporary stations to have sprung up around
southern and eastern Europe since the flow of migrants suddenly surged this
summer. Stations like Presevo
in Serbia 200km north, which has become one of the most strained and
congested of all the crossing points.
Wherever you go in the
region, the problems are the same: unpredictable migrant flows from each day to
the next; a host of medical problems to deal with; delays and security concerns
at border crossings; weary and anxious migrants often disorientated and afraid.
With winter almost upon us and the political climate changing further down the
trail, a perfect storm is amassing.
Already throughout eastern
Europe men, women and children sleep rough and exposed, often still wet from
ferry crossings and the lashing rain. Some are given waterproof clothing, others
are not so lucky. Temperatures in eastern Europe can reach as low as -15°C in
the depths of winter and even in the relatively mild autumn just drawing to a
close, hypothermia has been a common problem.
Aid agencies like Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF), Doctors of the World, the International Red
Cross, Save the Children, and others are battling to prevent a humanitarian
crisis from turning into a medical disaster. Two months ago the ‘camp’ at
Idomeni was just a few gazebos and food stalls. Since
then the various organisations have been working around the clock to assay the
situation, find out what was lacking, to provide a service, and source
equipment and supplies.
They have managed to get
hold of the basic equipment to treat the most common cases: colds, coughs,
hypothermia, dehydration, stress, trauma, exhaustion and worn limbs – the
wounds and inflictions from the journey itself. But for the most serious cases
the conditions are still parlous; an ambulance takes up to two hours to arrive
and without complex equipment the doctors have to make do.
Kiran Cheedella, a British
doctor volunteering at Idomeni, says that every day people arrive anxious and
traumatised. “I treated one man the other day whose heart rate was very high
when he arrived,” he says. “He told me some horrific stories of seeing dead
people along the way, and being pushed into small fuel containers by smugglers;
stories of brutality by the smugglers. People tell me they see boats sinking
every day and people dying as a result”.
MSF reports a “significant
increase” in the incidents of people suffering panic attacks and attempting to
self-harm, which it says is a direct result of the trauma of the trip. And
while arriving in Europe, into the arms of volunteer doctors, is a moment of
salvation in the eyes of the people who have survived that far, what they don’t
know is that further along the trail, the
wind has changed.
…
“Politicians
in the west like David Cameron have been using humiliating adjectives and
language to describe migrants and this only results in fuelling racism and
stigmatization.”
Even before the wave of
attacks in Paris on November 13, borders throughout Europe were closing and
fences were going up. Two of the biggest recipients of refugees, Germany and
Sweden, had already shifted their positions to restrict the number of refugees
permitted to enter the country, and Slovenia, a key entry point, has erected a
series of “temporary technical obstacles” – aka razor wire fences – along the
its border.
With the horrors of that
night in Paris still raw, very quickly fear turned to resentment, and
suspicion. Reports of a revenge arson attack on the refugee camp in Calais
turned out to be false, but were all too believable.
Across Europe far-right
groups are calling for a halt to all immigration from the Middle East, and
right-wing politicians are exploiting the situation to maximum effect. If this
wave continues and borders are sealed off for good, as more people flee the
region, key pressure points like Idomeni and Presevo could be overwhelmed.
In the last few weeks the
governments of Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia have all placed
restrictions on the migrants allowed over their borders. Which suits their own
needs politically, but does nothing for the migrants still arriving or for the
doctors out in the field trying to treat them.
Cheedella says this is the
worst thing that can happen to the teams trying to cope with the medical
situation. He says: “If the borders close down and we start getting these
pileups where the camps are filled with 5,000 to 10,000 people then the risks
of this becoming a medical emergency is going to increase. This could turn into
a huge camp where people stay for days, then the medical needs will change and
the risks of emergency are going to increase.
“If that happens overnight
it will be very stressful for us because we will be dealing with a whole new
range of medical problems and will need to increase the capacity very quickly”.
The changing attitudes in
countries like Germany and Sweden are alarming. But they follow months of those
countries accepting migrants – the bulk of the 800,000 estimated to have
entered Europe this year. Elsewhere on the continent, far less has been done. There
are even reports of “systematic” human
rights violations going on in some countries, according to the UN.
And, as a source inside Doctors
of the World’s mission in Greek tells me, the other approach, of “keeping
people in their place” by discouraging them from leaving the Middle East, has
been just as debilitating when it comes to any kind of solution.
He says: “Politicians in
the west like David Cameron have been using humiliating adjectives and language
to describe migrants and this only results in fuelling racism and
stigmatization. They are wrong when they say that this way of funding is going
to stop people from coming; we can see that very well and very clearly here, it
will not stop people”.
While western leaders
twist and turn in the changing political winds, the gruelling business of
keeping the refugees alive goes on. Organisations like Doctors of the World are
demanding real concerted
action from political leaders to keep hope alive for refugees and provide
safe passage out of conflict zones.
The policy of taking in
minimal refugees has won leaders like David Cameron quiet support at home and
pushed their own political problems back; but it has done very little to ease
the situation on the ground. And with this inaction, my source tells me, he is
afraid for what the next weeks and months have in store. “Winter is coming and
it's going to be really tough,” he says. “These people will keep moving”.
Aidan Hehir, reader in
International Relations at the Department of Politics and International
Relations at the University of Westminster, says that Britain’s contribution to
the crisis has been “paltry”, with the figure that Prime Minister David Cameron
committed to, of 20,000 people over five years, equating to each UK city taking
in five refugees per month.
It’s also worth bearing in
mind that Europe as a whole has only taken in 5% of all the refugees having
fled conflict zones – the remaining 95% going to surrounding countries.
…
It’s worth
bearing in mind that Europe as a whole has only taken in 5% of all the refugees
having fled conflict zones – the remaining 95% going to surrounding countries.
Whether Fatima made it to
a safe place, and in what state of health, the doctors at Idomeni will never
know. The number of people like her fleeing Iraq and Syria is on the rise, and
showing no sign of slowing down. Every day the people smugglers send men, women
and children out into the choppy waters of the Mediterranean; every day some of
them drown.
With winter approaching
just as the political climate becomes much colder, the plight of a desperate
people becomes more bleak every day. A further hardening of attitudes to
refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks could leave aid camps dangerously
overcrowded and unmanageable for the organisations operating there, and
ultimately leave more people stuck in the Middle East within the clutches of
ISIS.
To prevent a medical
crisis unfolding this winter, coordinated political action needs to happen. Western
governments must honour their commitments in the 1951 Refugee Convention; safe
passage out of conflict zones must be enabled; people must not be denied their
basic human rights to medical aid and shelter; and a pernicious right-wing
movement that seeks to exploit the tragedies in Paris to cut refugees off from
safety must not be allowed to prevail.
And through it all,
medical agencies and other aid organisations need the maximum support from western
governments and populations. If they don’t get it a desperate situation could
become steadily worse, as the long hard winter rolls on.